


Heir Apparent

by Melyanna (darthmelyanna)



Series: west-gate: A West Wing/Stargate Crossover [9]
Category: Stargate Atlantis, The West Wing
Genre: F/M, everyone off to scandinavia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-30
Updated: 2019-01-30
Packaged: 2019-10-19 10:44:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 22,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17599826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darthmelyanna/pseuds/Melyanna
Summary: The announcement of the year's Nobel laureates sends Ellie Bartlet back to Earth, and starts Elizabeth Weir thinking about the future of Atlantis, along with her own.





	1. Chapter 1

The city of Atlantis was not conducive to work when it was raining. Marcus Lorne didn’t know if it was because of the planet’s atmosphere or something, but they never got a light rain. He’d heard all about the storm, the one that had nearly destroyed the city during the year of exile, and he knew that none of the storms he’d seen came anywhere close to that one. But the city still grew unnaturally dark when it rained, almost creepy. Marcus would walk into an exterior room and catch the scent of sea and rain and find himself wishing he could be out in it, because that wouldn’t feel so strange as it did inside. But at least the control room had enough going on inside to distract him from the storm as it passed. “Dr. Weir,” he said upon entering, “you rang?”

Elizabeth nodded, her arms crossed over herself. “Seems we’ve got a situation,” she replied. “We just got a message from P77-X85.”

Marcus frowned. “Captain Cadman’s team is there with some medical researchers.”

“Ellie Bartlet’s leading a small team of molecular biologists and botanists to do some studies on the locals,” Elizabeth said. “First contact was made a couple weeks ago, and Beckett’s team found very little evidence of cancer in this population.”

“I know,” Marcus replied. “Ellie thinks it’s worth looking into their diet.”

Elizabeth shook her head. “I forget sometimes that she tells you things.”

“Well, it’s not like you have an abundance of time to think about my personal life, ma’am,” he said, with a small smile.

“Anyway,” she said, smiling in return, “we’ve got a bit of a situation.”

“Are we speaking in hyperbole?”

“I wish. One of Cadman’s men dialed in to tell us that Cadman and Santana are going to be executed in about three hours.”

“What the hell?” Marcus demanded, walking up to a console to read the transcript of the message himself.

“Something to do with violating holy ground. And breaking an ancient relic.”

“Ancient-ancient, or just plain ancient?”

“Lower-case ancient, I think,” Elizabeth said. “Though I didn’t ask.”

“You’re awfully sanguine about this, ma’am,” he replied.

“Well, my husband’s on the other side of the galaxy at the moment, so I know he’s not involved,” she said. “And situations where he and Rodney and Ronon aren’t involved tend to be about ten times easier to resolve.”

“Teyla doesn’t reside in a special hell reserved for the diplomatically inept too?”

“Teyla has tact.” Elizabeth turned and walked away, toward her office. “If you would, please, Colonel,” she said, “gather your team up and be ready to go in fifteen minutes. We’ve got some Marines to rescue.”

Marcus headed in the other direction. “Yes, ma’am.”

Twelve minutes later, he and his men were geared up, and they walked through the gate with Dr.b Weir. They set foot in a small clearing, surrounded by trees that appeared to be more or less deciduous. It was evidently autumn, too.

They headed in what they hoped was the direction of the village, according to information in a previous report. But before they’d reached the edge of the clearing, they heard voices. Marcus raised his weapon and stepped out in front of Dr. Weir, and soon two figures came into view. “Cadman?” he said.

“Captain,” Elizabeth said, “Sergeant Santana, what’s going on?”

“Uh, they let us go, ma’am,” Santana explained.

“Just like that?” Marcus asked.

“No, it was more like Ellie talked them into letting us go,” Cadman replied. “You should have seen it, Dr. Weir. It was pretty impressive. I didn’t realize she had it in her, but she handled the situation pretty well and got the village leaders to let us go if we left right then.”

Marcus and Weir exchanged a look. “You’re kidding, right?” he said. “Ellie played negotiator? And you’re still alive?”

“She’s an intelligent woman, Colonel,” the sergeant replied.

“She also doesn’t particularly like being in the spotlight,” Elizabeth said. “I think that was more the colonel’s point.”

“Well, like it or not, she did a pretty good job,” Cadman said. “As evidenced by the fact that I still have to be back on Earth for my cousin’s wedding next week.”

“You almost sound like you’d rather have it go the other way, Captain.”

“There’s orange taffeta involved, ma’am.”

“Aha. Understood.” Weir looked around for a moment. “Well, Captain, I take it the rest of your team is with Dr. Bartlet and the rest of the scientists?”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Cadman. “Ellie told the village leaders that we’d all leave, though, so they’re packing up. They should be back in Atlantis by the end of the day.”

Elizabeth nodded. “Colonel, why don’t you take your team to the village and help our people pack things up a little faster? I’ll head back to Atlantis with Captain Cadman and Sergeant Santana. The _Daedalus_ is supposed to arrive shortly, and I should probably be there for that.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Marcus replied.

They headed off in opposite directions, and then Dr. Weir called, “As little dalliance as possible, Colonel.” Marcus just rolled his eyes.

They arrived in the village a few minutes later. It wasn’t unlike many of the villages Marcus had been in across two galaxies. Small thatched houses dotted the landscape, and people milled about, engrossed in their day-to-day business. They were shortly approached by a group of men, all of them older and none of them happy. “Can we help you?” said a rather portly man.

“Some friends of ours have been staying with your people for a few days,” Marcus replied. “We understand that they’re preparing to leave, so we’re here to help them.”

The men looked at them suspiciously, but the first man nodded and pointed toward a building. “They’ve been lodging there,” he said.

“Thank you,” said Marcus. “We’ll be out of your way as soon as possible.”

“See that you are.”

“Friendly folks,” said Sergeant Rocca, once they were out of earshot.

“Yeah, really makes you wonder what Cadman did,” Marcus replied.

“You know, sir,” Michaels said, “it could have been Santana.”

“Cadman’s like the little sister I never wanted,” Marcus said. “Believe me. It was her.”

They came to the house in question and almost ran into two scientists on their way out. “Colonel Lorne,” said Katie Brown. “What are you doing here?”

“Started out as a rescue mission,” he explained. “Now we’re here to help get everything packed up.”

“Dr. Bartlet’s in the back room,” said the other scientist, one whose name Marcus could never remember. “She’s packing up the last of our samples, but if you want to start getting our equipment back to the gate, that’d be lovely.”

Marcus led his team inside and directed two of his men to start getting things out, while the other helped out with the rest of the packing. He himself headed to the back room, where Ellie was alone and had her back to the door. “Hello, Ellie,” he said, leaning against the door frame.

She turned around suddenly. “Marcus,” she said, her hands covered in some kind of green goo. “What are you doing here?”

“Well, I came to play knight in shining armor,” he replied, walking toward her, “but someone stole my thunder.”

He normally wouldn’t have kissed her while on duty, but made an exception, given that it had been a week since he’d last seen her. She pushed him back with her elbow. “You could at least wait until I don’t have _clevotar_ purée all over my hands.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” he asked, kissing her nose. He let her get back to work, though, and leaned against a table. “Why’d you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Do the negotiating by yourself.”

Ellie shrugged, her attention focused on getting her gloves off. “It needed to be done.”

“Cadman claims it was pretty impressive.”

“Laura thinks toasters are impressive,” Ellie replied. “She has a healthy sense of wonder.”

“Dr. Weir seemed to be pretty surprised that you’d done it,” Marcus said.

“I’d spent more time with these people than with you in the last month, Marcus,” she said. “I learned how to deal with them. It really wasn’t all that difficult.” He tried his best not to smile at that, but she saw it anyway. “What?”

“Dr. Weir’s always said that the best diplomacy comes from knowing the audience,” he replied. “Seems you knew that without the benefit of her lectures.”

Ellie shook her head. “Help me get this stuff into a box, all right?”

* * *

  
They arrived back on Atlantis just in time for mail call. A lot of people sent and received messages when Atlantis made contact with Earth every week, but for those who preferred paper communication or were expecting packages, the arrival of the _Daedalus_ was an important day. Ellie usually wrote to her parents and sisters via the Atlantis equivalent of email, but her parents in particular normally wrote back to her on paper, unless there was an emergency. So she wasn’t at all surprised to have a small stack of letters and a package waiting for her in her inbox. Marcus grabbed a few letters of his own, and Ellie grabbed Kate’s mail for her.

Marcus had work to do, so Ellie headed to the mess alone to get a cup of coffee and read her mail. The place seemed a lot more lively than it should have been, given that it was the middle of the morning. But once she arrived in the room, she saw that the noise she’d heard was being generated by Laura Cadman’s lively retelling of her latest near-death experience.

“The place was a mess,” Laura was saying. “Vines growing everywhere, walls crumbling, it was no wonder Santana tripped and broke the artifact.” She looked up and saw Ellie. “Ellie, you’re here just in time for the good part!”

Ellie rolled her eyes and headed toward the coffee. “So the locals found out what had happened, and they grabbed me and Santana,” Laura continued. “Ellie Bartlet finds out what’s going on and heads up to the village elders and asks very politely for them to let us go. It goes back and forth, back and forth, and. . .”

Ellie took her coffee and left before she could hear more of that. She had little doubt that Laura and the sergeant were grateful, but Ellie really hadn’t considered it outside the realm of her abilities. She’d always been good at reading people, at figuring out how they’d react and how they needed to be treated to get the response she needed. It was just that she’d never particularly liked using that talent, as in her family’s experience, it usually resulted in some kind of political battle.

When she got to her quarters, Kate was waiting outside, leaning against the wall with her arms crossed, looking quite relaxed. “I think you’ve got something of mine,” she said.

Ellie handed over the box. “Looks like your mom’s still trying to get you to put on more weight.”

“She’ll never give that up.” Ellie opened the door to her room, and Kate said, “Mind if I join you for a bit? My ten o’clock cancelled on me, and I’m up to date on all my paperwork.”

“Lucky you,” Ellie replied.

The two women walked inside and settled on a sofa that Laura had reappropriated for Ellie not long after she’d gotten there. Both their packages were predictable: Kate’s mother had sent her cookies, and Ellie’s father had sent her a book. “It’s really not fair,” Kate said. “Can we switch parents for a bit? My mom sends you sweets, and your parents send me a book?”

“This is what you get for being a baker’s daughter,” Ellie replied, “and what I get for being a professor’s daughter.”

“So what’s the book, anyway?” Kate asked, popping a cookie in her mouth.

“It’s C. J. Cregg’s book,” Ellie said, turning it over in her hands. “ _A Sudden Arboreal Stop_. Her memoirs of the Bartlet administration.”

“Kind of an odd title,” Kate remarked.

“It probably has something to do with that time Dad rode his bike into a tree.” Ellie smiled faintly. There was a note inside indicating that she’d been mentioned in it several times. She set it aside. “Sounds like the kind of phrase they’d have kicked around when they had to announce what had happened.”

“I think I remember that.” Kate handed her a cookie. “What’s your father been up to lately?”

“Not riding bicycles, that’s for sure,” Ellie said, slitting an envelope and proceeding to read the letter inside. “No, he’s been doing some diplomatic work. For a man who had to bring Dr. Weir in to teach him about foreign policy in his first national campaign, he sure has grown a lot.” Then she stared at the paper in her hands and said, “They’ve got to be kidding me. Why in the world didn’t they tell me before now?”

“What is it?” Kate asked. “Is something wrong?”

“My father won another Nobel prize!”

There was a stunned silence, and then Kate burst out laughing. “What?” Ellie said.

“No, it’s just the way you said that,” Kate replied. “You sound annoyed that your father won _another_ Nobel. Not many people get to say that at all.” She closed up the box of cookies. “Ugh, I’ve eaten too many of these already. What category did he win this one in? Economics again?”

“No, peace. It’s for all that diplomatic work.” Ellie got to her feet, shaking her head. “The man has multiple sclerosis, and now he spends half his life now hopping around the globe trying to get people to talk to each other and solve their differences. I really don’t know how he does it.”

“Well, the human body can do amazing things with the proper psychological motivations.”

“Oh, go away. Isn’t simple amazement enough for you?”

“Not generally, no.”

They had lunch together later, by which point Cadman had thankfully stopped telling the story of that morning’s adventure to the mess hall. Carl Schuler from radiology came up with a tray after they had been eating for a few minutes. “Afternoon, ladies,” he said. “Ellie, if you haven’t opened your mail yet, you probably should.”

“What makes you say that?” she asked.

He sat down across from Kate. “Dr. Weir got the list of Nobel laureates and posted it in the media lounge,” he explained.

“Oh, that.”

Carl looked at her oddly. “Your father won the Nobel Peace Prize, and your reaction is ‘oh, that’?”

“It’s his second,” she replied.

“You know, Ellie,” he said, “sometimes talking with you is surreal.”

* * *

  
When John got back to Atlantis, Elizabeth was nowhere in the control area of the city. Upon checking his watch, he realized this wasn’t unreasonable. The boys were probably napping, and Elizabeth usually took this time to work in the quiet of their quarters, unless there was an emergency.

But when he’d stowed his gear in the armory and reached the family’s suite, he found Elizabeth with her suitcase open on their bed. She didn’t turn when he entered. “Going somewhere?” he asked.

She looked over her shoulder briefly. “I need to talk to you about something.”

He didn’t reply immediately, sinking into a chair on the other side of the bed instead. “We got the list of Nobel laureates today,” she explained.

“Did you win something?”

“No. Sorry.” She folded up a blue tank top and placed it in the suitcase. “But President Bartlet did. He’s invited me to the ceremony.”

“Which is in. . .”

“Norway.”

“I meant when.”

“Oh. December.” Elizabeth moved things around to give herself enough space to sit on the bed, her legs crossed in some yoga position. She was flexible, if nothing else. “But I thought I’d take the boys with me and visit your family while I’m there.”

It was somewhat amazing to John that Elizabeth was so much more comfortable with his family than he was, but it shouldn’t have been. She wasn’t the one who’d avoided them for years. And with no family of her own left, she was more likely to hold on to his. Besides, she’d found that having a mother-in-law wasn’t such a bad thing when one was in a different galaxy most of the time.

“Can’t I come with you?” he asked, moving to the bed.

She smiled sadly. “The SGC doesn’t really like it when the two of us are both away from here,” she said. “I don’t know what they’ll do if we ever decide to leave.”

He leaned forward and kissed her. “That something we need to talk about at some point?”

“Eventually,” she replied. “I’ve been thinking about it for a while.”

John kicked his shoes off while Elizabeth lay back against the pillows. “How about now?”

“Leaving now?”

“Talking now.”

He leaned down and pressed a kiss just beside her mouth. “Well,” she said, “we can’t stay here forever. I don’t think it’s best for the boys.”

John shook his head. “They need to be around regular kids eventually. And go to school with other kids, too.”

“And I don’t think it’s best for me.”

He slipped his hand under the hem of her blouse and frowned. “Bored?”

She shook her head. “No, not that. Never that.” Elizabeth let out a long breath and ruffled his hair. “This place still has its challenges, but sometimes I just feel like I need something. . . different. I wish I could explain it better.”

Her breath caught in her throat as he began to trace simple patterns on her stomach. “Your wanderlust is worse than mine,” he teased.

“No, you get to satisfy your wanderlust. I’m here most of the time.” John started unbuttoning her blouse so he could get his mouth on her skin. “As pretty as this place is, it gets a little redundant after a while.”

He tried to stretch out, but his feet connected with her suitcase. Not really thinking, he kicked it off the bed. She sat up, an irritated look on her face. “Are you going to clean that up?”

In a flash, he grabbed her by the waist and pulled her to his lap, her shirt hanging half open to reveal soft, pale flesh beneath. “Maybe,” he said, before burying his hands in her curls and kissing her once more. Elizabeth melted into him despite her annoyance, hands fisting in his shirt as the kiss grew more passionate.

John made some kind of incoherent noise as she pulled away. “I could jump you right now,” he said, turning his attention to her neck.

“I thought that was what you were doing,” she said.

“True.”

He started to kiss her again, but she backed away. “John, I really want to talk about this before I go.”

“Who says you get to go?” She pouted, and it took all of John’s self-control not to push her down to the bed again. “Fine, you can go see your mentor accept his second Nobel prize.”

“Thank you,” she replied, looking sincere as she played with the hair at the nape of his neck. “You know, when I’ve been on Earth since the disclosure, there’s been talk of me getting into politics. Running for office.”

“And?”

She shook her head. “President Santos was just reelected a year ago, but the party’s already started looking for a successor.”

“They want you to run for–”

“President,” Elizabeth finished. “I’m almost sure of it. Almost sure that Josh Lyman’s going to do his best to get me to agree to it.”

John was silent for a few moments, not knowing what to say. “This isn’t a decision I’d make without you,” she continued. “I promise you that. But I need you to start thinking about it. That’s all I’m asking right now.”

He nodded. “Okay.”

Elizabeth wrapped her arms around him, resting her cheek against his neck. “Do you have to be anywhere for a while?” he asked.

She shook her head. “The boys probably won’t wake up for a while either,” she replied. “You have something in mind?”

“Well, I’ve already started undressing you,” he said, “and we’re in bed already. . . so I could just have my way with you for a while.”

She made a contented sound that was answer enough.

* * *

  
Two days later, Ellie had gotten leave to go back to Earth for a few weeks when Atlantis made its scheduled contact with their home planet. Elizabeth was going back too, taking Peter and Siah with her, and by coincidence, Laura and Kate already had leave planned. Laura had, in fact, been moaning for weeks about the dress she had to wear as a bridesmaid in her cousin’s wedding, because the cousin wouldn’t let her stand up in uniform.

When Ellie mentioned it to Marcus, the conversation somehow ended in a request that he go with her. John had no problem with this, to Ellie’s surprise. With him being in charge of Atlantis for about six weeks, she would have expected him to want Marcus around, but when questioned on the matter, he said he was far more amused by the prospect of Marcus meeting her father.

“But they’ve already met,” she protested.

“They met, but Lorne went and stood in the next room while Elizabeth talked to Jed,” John replied. “Believe me, it’s different when you’re the boyfriend.”

There were a few others who left with them, but the party split up as soon as the SGC’s medical staff would let them. Elizabeth was off to Chicago with the boys to see John’s family, Laura was going somewhere in Oregon, and Kate was heading to Nebraska to see her family. Ellie and Marcus spent the first two weeks in Cincinnati, where his mother was startled to find herself meeting the daughter of a former president, and even more unsettled by the fact that she had Secret Service agents following her around.

Marcus’ family was just getting used to the weirdness when they headed to New Hampshire. A massive snow storm had just hit the area, but Ellie knew that if they delayed for a day or two, she’d just get called a wimp by her father. In all likelihood, they were going to be stuck once they got up there, so Ellie just hoped that the presence of a guest would keep her parents from arguing too much or fussing over her.

She remembered a Christmas long ago, when Elizabeth had stayed for a few days, and remembered that the presence of a guest hadn’t done much good then.

“This is weird,” she said, holding Marcus’ hand. “I don’t have a key with me, so I guess I have to knock on my own parents’ door.”

As it turned out, Zoey was there and watching for them in the window. She opened the door by the time they’d gotten to the porch, and Ellie found herself confronted by sisters, brothers-in-law, nieces and nephew, and parents. “Ellie,” her mother said, kissing her cheeks and hugging her fiercely, “oh, it’s good to see you, baby.”

Marcus stood back while Ellie went through the whole family, ending with her father. “I’m so proud of you, sweetheart,” he said, giving her a hug. “But who’s this?”

Ellie turned, and Marcus stepped forward. “Dad, this is Lieutenant Colonel Marcus Lorne,” she said. “My boyfriend.”  



	2. Chapter 2

Elizabeth woke when the phone rang early one Saturday morning, but she chose to let her mother-in-law get it. It wasn’t for her, she reasoned, as anyone who wanted to talk to her would call her cell phone. Except, of course, for the four hundred and fifty-three calls she’d gotten in the last two weeks asking her to do interviews. She was seriously thinking about getting some kind of secretary or assistant to deal with these things for her when she was on Earth.

Josiah snuggled closer to her, his face pressed against her side. Elizabeth craned her neck to see Peter sleeping soundly in a sleeping bag on the floor. It was no real surprise that their sleeping arrangements had turned out that way. Siah might have looked like his father, but it was Peter who took after John in temperament.

She was almost falling asleep again when there was a light rap on the door and her mother-in-law opened the door slightly. “Elizabeth?” she said. “There’s a Josh Lyman on the phone for you.”

Elizabeth groaned. “Oh, I’m going to kill him,” she mumbled. “Okay, I’ll take it.”

Her mother-in-law backed out of the room, and Elizabeth reached for the phone on the bedside table, not bothering to sit up. “Hello?”

“There was this thing on television here and I thought of you.”

She waited a beat. “Josh?”

“Huh? Oh, right. Hi,” Josh said. “I need to know if you’re coming to the thing.”

“Josh,” she replied, looking at a clock, “you sound like you’re suggesting we have an affair and trying to be vague. And since I’ve seen you with your wife and kids for more than five minutes, I know that’s not true, but other people might not.”

“Yeah.” Elizabeth could imagine the slightly baffled look on the man’s face as he spoke. “So are you?”

Sighing, Elizabeth said, “Josh, look at your watch.”

“It’s 8:45.”

“In _your_ time zone.”

“Okay, so it’s slightly earlier where you are.”

“You called me before eight on a Saturday morning,” she said, “and now both my kids are waking up as a result.”

“Oh. I’m really sorry.” He sounded like it, too.

“So what is it you want from me, Giselle?”

“First, never to use that nickname on me again,” Josh replied. “And possibly as a corollary to that, never talk to CJ or Donna about me again.”

“Second?”

“Secondly, I need to know if you’re going to the pre-reception reception.”

“Josh, if you had any idea how many invitations I got once I set foot on this planet, you’d be nicer to me and talk in specifics,” she said, yawning. “Besides, I’m crashing the Bartlet farm tomorrow, so I’m going to be unavailable for a while.”

“Hey, we didn’t get that invitation!” he protested. “Oh, wait, they’re still a little mad at me for trying to talk Liz into running for office.”

“This soon after the divorce? Wow, you’re an idiot. How _did_ you manage to convince Donna to marry you?”

“Oh, you know, got her drunk, knocked her up– Oww!”

Elizabeth smiled, figuring that Donna had smacked Josh as he so well deserved for that remark. “So why is it you called me?”

“Oh, for the love of – would you please just inject some coffee into your system and wake up already?”

“You said a reception,” she calmly replied. “You didn’t say which one or where it is or when it is. Don’t tell me about injecting coffee. You should see it on Atlantis when we run out three days before the _Daedalus_ gets back with more rations.”

“Man, that’s rough,” he said. “This is the reception before the ceremony. The one for family and friends.”

“And this is in Norway?”

“Yes, in Norway!” Josh almost yelled. “Where were you expecting, Kamchatka?”

“Wow, Josh, how far back into your memory did you have to dig to pull out _that_ obscure reference?”

“Shut up, okay?”

“That’s not a nice way to treat a girl when you want her to run for president.”

“I hadn’t gotten to number three yet.”

“Yes, well, my father always told me to think ahead.” She looked down at one side of the bed, where Peter was standing up and about to start climbing on furniture, but when he saw her, he backed off. “But you’re going to be in Norway, so can we talk about it there?”

“I want to talk about it now.”

Elizabeth rolled her eyes. “Goodbye, Josh.”

She hung up without letting him say anything else. Before Elizabeth could say anything to the boys, however, the phone rang again. She grabbed it and said, “Josh, you’re not helping your cause any by pestering.”

“This isn’t Josh,” a woman said on the other end of the line. “This is Gina Toscano of the Secret Service.”

Elizabeth sat straight up, pushing hair out of her face. “Hi, I’m Elizabeth Weir.”

“I’m the head of President Bartlet’s security detail,” Toscano explained. “Two women just tried to enter the Bartlets’ property, and when we restrained them, one of them asked us to call you to verify that they should be allowed here.”

Elizabeth raised a brow. “Their names?”

“A Marine captain named Laura Cadman, and a Dr. Katherine Heightmeyer.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Elizabeth said, rolling her eyes. “They’re friends of Ellie Bartlet.”

“Redhead and a blonde?”

“Yes, that’s them.”

When Elizabeth had hung up the phone a second time, she sent the boys downstairs for breakfast and flopped back down on the bed. She didn’t want to know what had happened before that phone call, she kept telling herself. She didn’t want to know.

* * *

Ellie was coming down the stairs when the front door burst open. “What the. . . Kate? Laura?” she said, seeing two familiar figures come in with Gina. Laura had her head tilted back, and her nose was bleeding. “Someone, tell me what’s going on.”

“Laura has a healthy respect for the Secret Service now,” Kate said. “Right, Laura?”

“She clotheslined me!” Laura exclaimed.

“She was given fair warning,” Gina argued. “She didn’t take me seriously.”

“Oh, good grief,” Ellie said, sighing. “Come on into the kitchen. We’ll stop the bleeding and see if it’s broken.”

By the time they got Laura sitting down at the harvest table in the kitchen, Marcus had come in and started laughing before he’d heard any of the story. By the time Ellie got a dish towel out and had it against Laura’s nose to get the bleeding to stop, half her family was crowded into the kitchen for Kate’s unusually colorful retelling of Laura’s refusal to admit that they couldn’t just walk up to the house and surprise Ellie.

“Is that so?” Ellie’s dad asked at the end of it, chuckling. “As long as you didn’t break any bones, Gina, I think we’re okay.”

“It hurts like hell!” Laura cried, and then she hastily added, “Sir.”

Marcus snickered, and Ellie sighed. “It’s not broken,” she said. “Which means you got lucky. Gina’s done much worse.”

“Why don’t you explain why you were trying to crash the farm in the first place, Cadman?” Marcus suggested.

Laura managed to glare at him despite having her head back and a towel over her nose, so Kate answered for them. “Laura was wondering if we could come along to Sweden,” she explained. “She was bored in Oregon.”

“Yes, make me look like the crazy person,” Laura said, taking the towel down and lowering her head.

“You were the one who just tried to take a Secret Service agent!”

“Laura! Kate!” Ellie exclaimed. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Zoey and Charlie squeezing into the kitchen too. All they needed now to complete the audience were her nieces and nephew.

“Ellie,” her father said, “why don’t you introduce these two?”

“Kate Heightmeyer, the expedition’s psychologist,” Ellie replied, gesturing to Kate. “And the redhead is Captain Laura Cadman, explosives expert.”

“They let you handle explosives?” Gina said.

“Got a problem with that?”

“You’re insane!”

“Hey,” Kate said, “let me do the diagnosing.”

“Is she?” Gina asked.

Kate hesitated, and Laura reached over and smacked the back of her head.

“Ellie,” Abbey said, “your sisters never brought home such interesting friends.”

Rolling her eyes, Ellie took a few steps back toward Marcus, who wrapped his arms around her and kissed the back of her neck. “Yeah, well,” Liz put in, “when was the last time Ellie brought friends home?”

She gave her father a wry smile. “I had to go to another galaxy to find a man my father would approve of, so cut me some slack, okay?”

Jed chuckled. “So you two want to come along to Norway?”

“It’s Norway?” Kate asked.

“Yes. The peace prize is the only Nobel prize not awarded in Sweden. You two want to come along to Norway?”

“Yes, sir,” Laura replied.

“We’ll have to run it by the Secret Service.”

“Well, in all fairness,” Marcus said, “their security clearance is pretty high.”

“Good point.”

“Laura, did you at least _go_ to your cousin’s wedding?” Ellie asked.

“Yes. Orange taffeta and all,” Laura replied bitterly.

“Dad, can she come? Please?” Zoey said.

“Were you with her?” Abbey asked of Kate.

“At her cousin’s wedding? No, ma’am,” Kate replied. “She picked me up in Nebraska.”

“Just in time, too,” Laura said.

“Don’t remind me.”

Ellie raised a brow. “What do you mean, just in time?”

“My tiny little hometown was going to make me grand marshal of their Christmas parade,” Kate replied, looking a bit embarrassed about it.

“I ought to take you back there and make you be in the parade,” Jed said.

“Sir, it involved riding on a tractor in December in Nebraska. Where there’s nothing between you and the North Pole to stop the wind.”

Jed scoffed, and Ellie said, “Kate, don’t get him started on winter weather. Not if you value your sanity.”

“Well, if my choices are a Christmas parade in Nebraska and Norway, I think I’ll take Norway.”

Ellie looked at her father, who chuckled. “Yeah, you can come to Norway,” he said. “We’re taking the rest of the circus along, so you might as well. It’ll be fun.”

Gina looked at him oddly. “You sure about that, sir?”

“You questioning my judgment, Army?”

“Wait, she’s Army?” Laura exclaimed.

“Jed, must you always provoke these things?” Abbey asked.

“As often as possible.”

* * *

“Peter!” Elizabeth Weir called across the driveway. “Stop shoving snow in your brother’s face this instant!”

Jed chuckled as he watched Peter Sheppard sit back on the porch with Siah and Jed’s granddaughter, Charlie and Zoey’s daughter Sophia. She was wiping snow off Josiah’s face with her mittened hands. Jed leaned against his shovel as Elizabeth turned around. “Sir, aren’t we all supposed to be contributing to this little project?” she asked.

He gave her a look. “You questioning my work ethic?”

Elizabeth had arrived that morning, along with her boys and Ainsley Hayes in her car and eight more inches of snow on her heels. In short order, Jed had ordered everyone out of the house and shoveling the driveway. The only people who got out of it were the Secret Service agents, who were required by law to have their hands free, and the children, who weren’t tall enough.

“I’m acting as an observer,” Elizabeth replied merrily. “It’s what I’m good at.”

“Well, it might do you good to observe that Peter’s about to fall off the step.”

“It won’t hurt him too much. And maybe he’ll learn something from it this time.”

True to form, the three-year-old toppled off the bottom step a few seconds later. He started to cry, so Elizabeth abandoned snow shoveling for a while to check on him. She returned a couple minutes later and said, “He’ll probably have a bruise, but he’s fine.”

She picked up her shovel again and started pushing snow to the edge of the driveway while Jed watched. “You know, I would have figured you for the slightly more protective type when it comes to your kids,” he remarked.

“I was,” she admitted, stopping to readjust her gloves. “Then Peter started walking when I was eight months pregnant with Josiah, and there was no way I could keep him out of trouble. And John was always more laid back about this kind of thing than I was. His mother says he spent most of his childhood falling out of trees.”

Jed chuckled. “Somehow, I can see that.” At the other end of the driveway, however, he saw that Ainsley and Laura Cadman had laid their shovels down and were making snow angels. “Ladies!” he yelled. “Work before play!”

Laura got up almost immediately, but Ainsley just sat there. “You just miss ordering people around, don’t you?” Liz asked.

Elizabeth snickered, and then the two women looked at each other awkwardly. Jed would have said something, but it was obvious that whatever was happening between his daughter and his friend was something he didn’t need to interrupt. And something good probably would have come of it, if Laura Cadman hadn’t thrown a snowball. Ellie’s boyfriend was the target, but Marcus ducked just in time. It went whizzing over him and smacked Abbey squarely in the back of the head.

Abbey stumbled and turned around to see Laura with her hands over her mouth. Marcus was almost doubled over with laughter as Abbey walked over. “Mom,” Ellie said, “she’s a Marine, and you’ve got thirty years on her. . .”

“Gina, do you think I can take this Marine brat?” Abbey asked.

“Absolutely, ma’am,” the Secret Service agent replied, looking terribly amused.

Laura took a few terrified steps backwards before Abbey ran after her. And then another snowball flew, and they had a full-fledged snowball fight on their hands.

Jed stepped back unobtrusively as the fight escalated, retreating to the porch. There was something highly absurd about these guests of his, with such important jobs, acting so much like children while the actual children sat calmly on the porch steps and watched. “Can I sit here?” he asked of the children.

Sophie beamed at him, and he slowly sat down next to her. “So how are you kids doing?” he asked.

“Mommy’s going to need a bath,” Peter said, as Marcus stuffed snow down the back of Elizabeth’s coat. “But I don’t! I’m all dry ‘cause I didn’t play in the snow.”

“Have you ever seen snow before, Peter?” Jed asked.

The boy shook his head. “It’s funny.”

“How’s that?”

“It melts like ice cream!”

Jed leaned over conspiratorially. “Did you know you could make ice cream with snow?”

Peter’s eyes widened.

There was some good-natured hollering from the adults, and things seemed to be wrapping up with Marcus tackling Kate into a particularly high snow drift. “Man, these people need outlets,” Jed commented. Sophie nodded knowingly.

“Mommy!” Siah exclaimed as the adults came toward the house. Elizabeth picked him up, and he pointed down at Sophie, who had taken off her red cap with little kitty ears. “She’s pretty,” he said.

“You’re not allowed to say things like that yet,” Jed replied, while his granddaugher stood up and hid behind him.

“They’re _two_ , Dad,” Zoey said with fond exasperation in her voice.

“You can’t start too early, you know.”

Zoey picked Sophie up and stood next to Elizabeth. Siah reached over and tried to grab one of Sophie’s poofy pigtails. “Yes, you can,” Zoey replied.

Jed turned his attention to Elizabeth. “And you’re not the least concerned that your son flirts already?”

Elizabeth laughed. “He’s his father’s son. I resigned myself to this possibility a long, long time ago.”

“Well,” Abbey said, “hot chocolate and cider in ten minutes. Everyone get back inside and change clothes if you need to.”

“So who officially won?” Jed asked.

“Kate,” half a dozen people replied.

“She cheated,” said Laura.

“Which is why I tackled her,” Marcus explained.

* * *

  
Ellie was sitting in the living room later in the day because it was really the only quiet place in the house where she could work in peace. Almost everyone else was back in the den, but Elizabeth and the boys were in the living room too. Peter had fallen asleep on the window seat, sprawled out in the afternoon sun, and Siah was sleeping on his mother’s lap. Elizabeth had been reading to him before he’d passed out, and now she was reading from the type of file folder that Ellie had often seen when her father had been in office.

Her sister Liz came in after a while. “Ellie, Dad finds your two friends really entertaining,” she said. Then she looked at Elizabeth and Siah and added, “His neck is going to be really sore when he wakes up.”

Elizabeth smiled. “I know,” she replied. “John can pick up either of these boys and not wake them up, but I’ve never managed to do that. And I just don’t want to wake him up. He was exhausted.”

Elizabeth’s pager went off, and Liz picked it up. It was slightly out of reach for Elizabeth. “It’s Josh Lyman,” Liz said.

“I am _not_ calling him back now.”

Liz smiled and set the pager down. “He’ll call back. Probably at some equally inopportune moment.”

To Ellie’s surprise, her sister sat down in the chair opposite Elizabeth’s. Elizabeth looked surprised as well, but only for a heartbeat. “Josh does have timing,” she remarked. “This is the second time he’s called while Siah’s been asleep.”

“So what’s he proposing you should run for?” Liz asked. “Senate at least, I imagine.”

“President, actually,” Elizabeth replied, looking a little embarrassed about it. “He told me that he talked to you about the House. I told him he was an idiot for bringing it up so soon after. . . Well, after you and Doug split up.”

Liz rolled her eyes. “We split up about a year after his spectacularly failed attempt at being a politician,” she replied. “It just took me this long to talk him into granting me an annulment. The divorce was finalized a long time ago.”

“Well, this is what I get for living in another galaxy and not keeping up on all the news,” Elizabeth replied with a wry smile.

As the two women continued to talk, Ellie finally realized what her sister was doing. Something – maybe it was disclosure, maybe it was the divorce, maybe it was meeting the child Elizabeth had named after their father – had convinced Liz to set aside nearly two decades of ill will and make an effort to treat Elizabeth Weir like a human being instead of a parasite. And much like their mother had done on so many occasions, Liz did so by ignoring the fact that she’d resented Elizabeth for years. Elizabeth was taking it well enough that it made Ellie wonder if Abbey’s change of heart had resulted in the same behavior.

“You’re out of your mind, you know,” Liz commented.

“Sorry?”

“Having kids at this age,” she clarified. “I can’t imagine putting my body through the toddler years again.”

Elizabeth glanced over at the still-snoozing Peter and said, “Well, he wasn’t exactly planned. Siah was, but I doubt we’ll have another one intentionally.” She looked over at Ellie for the first time since Liz had entered. “Ellie was there. She can tell you all about it.”

Liz looked over at the corner, startled. “Ellie, I didn’t even notice you–”

“I’m used to it,” Ellie interrupted.

“You were there when Siah was born?”

“I delivered him,” Ellie answered quietly. “It was. . . interesting.”

“It was painful,” Elizabeth interjected.

“It always is,” Liz pointed out.

“I didn’t have any anasthetic to speak of either.”

Liz winced.

* * *

  
Two days before they were all to leave for Norway, Elizabeth spent the afternoon in New York City filming interviews for a wide variety of programs. She’d always intended to bring the boys with her, though she had no idea what they’d do while she was in front of a camera, but the Bartlets offered to keep them in New Hampshire for the day to give her a little space. It had been strange to spend the day without them, but it was probably easier on the camera crews. She returned late that night, after the boys were soundly asleep, and she took that opportunity to set up her laptop in the kitchen and get some work done.

An hour later, she heard someone coming down the stairs, and it was no surprise when Jed Bartlet came in with an empty glass. “You’re up late,” he remarked, walking to the sink to fill his glass with water again.

“So are you, sir,” Elizabeth replied, tapping her thumb lightly against the space bar.

“Yeah, but I’m not still working.”

“Helps that you’re retired.”

“And you’re sassing me in my own house.” He pulled up a chair and sat. “I guess it was inevitable.”

“Pretty much.”

He picked up a page, his hand shaking slightly. “Remember the last time we did this?”

“It was unpleasant,” Elizabeth replied, knowing that was an understatement. “Hopefully you’re not here to tell me that Abbey’s kicking me out or something.”

“No, nothing so drastic. I just woke up.” He read a little and said, “What’s this for?”

“An op-ed for the _Washington Post_ ,” she replied. “They asked me to contribute something unique.”

She sipped from her glass of milk and wrote a few more words, waiting for him to read more of it. When the editor had called her earlier in the week and asked for a unique piece, she had come up with an idea immediately. Within a couple hours, she had written the first draft of an op-ed on the limitations of the Geneva Convention, and how the basis of international law was shaky at best when it came to interplanetary relations. These were things that no one else was talking about now, and she was in a unique position to articulate the problems that others needed to think about.

After a few minutes of silence, Bartlet set the page down and said, “You’re running for president already.”

That certainly wasn’t the reaction she’d expected, and she decided to go for part of the truth. “It’s been discussed, yes,” she said, “but I haven’t come close to making a decision.”

“That’s crap. You have,” he replied. “You may not be willing to admit it yet, but this piece is going to be the first of many steps you take to position yourself.”

“And how are you reading that into it?”

“You’re distancing yourself from me, from Santos, and from the international community,” Jed said. “This is a gutsy move from anyone, and particularly from you. You’re telling the world and especially this country that the last sixty years of nation-building and international relations isn’t going to work once we get serious about things outside this planet.”

“They say the military’s always fighting the last war,” Elizabeth replied. “That the commanders are always stuck in the tactics and technologies of the wars they fought as young men. If we’re going to survive this, we have to get past that. We have to get to a point where we’re thinking in tomorrow’s terms, not yesterday’s.”

He was silent for a while, and Elizabeth knew she hadn’t convinced him, not that that had been her goal. “You know what Ainsley said to me today?” he asked. “The Republicans are terrified of you.”

Elizabeth frowned. “Terrified of someone with no campaign experience and no domestic track record?”

“Exactly. You’ve never made a campaign promise and broken it, and you don’t have a legislative record to run away from,” he replied. “Any Republican who stands a fighting chance against you is smart enough to run away. I’ve seen polling data.”

“There’s _polling_ on me?”

“When Josh Lyman wants something, he does his research,” Jed replied.

“You know,” she said, “there was a time when Josh wanted nothing to do with me. He was terrified that you were going to lose the first time because you’d invited a UN negotiator in to teach you something about foreign policy.”

He got to his feet. “Yeah, Josh is fickle like that.”

“So if I just ignore him long enough, he’ll leave me alone?”

“I doubt that.” He looked at her seriously and said, “Elizabeth, promise me something. Before you give an answer to anyone, make sure you and John are on the same page.”

From the tone of his voice, she suspected that he was speaking from deep personal history, maybe even from both times he ran for president. After all, Abbey was not a woman to be left out. Elizabeth nodded. “We’ve already spoken about this,” she said. “But I wouldn’t dream of making this decision without him.”

“You’ve already made up your mind,” he replied. “And you’ve already won.”

He left her alone with that thought. The startling thing was that the idea wasn’t as unappealing as she would have imagined a few years earlier.

Her pager started buzzing, and she knew before she picked it up that it was Josh Lyman. “Josh,” she said, “I’m not talking to you now. You might talk me into something I’ll regret later.”

With that, she gathered up her laptop and notes and went to bed.


	3. Chapter 3

When they took off for Norway, the passenger manifest seemed to have grown a bit. Marcus had seen enough CNN to recognize CJ Cregg, Donna Moss, and Josh Lyman when they and others joined them at the airport in Boston. He was actually just finishing up CJ’s book. Ellie was already done with it.

It was a late flight, taking off in Boston at nine in the evening and landing in Oslo at eleven (local time) the next morning. Ellie was curled up in the chair next to Marcus, almost asleep. “You comfortable?” Marcus asked, nudging her with his elbow.

“Quite,” she replied, opening her eyes. “You know, when we met, I never would have guessed that you were this nerdy.”

He closed the book and smacked Ellie’s knee with it. “I’m a pilot,” he replied. “Of course I’m a nerd.”

“That’s not the public image.” She rubbed her knee. “But seriously, I wasn’t figuring on finding a geeky boyfriend in the military.”

“I don’t think anyone was counting on you getting a military boyfriend of any type,” he commented. “Remember the look on your dad’s face?”

“Oh, that was classic Dad,” Ellie said, laughing.

“Anyway, I have to keep up on all the bestsellers,” Marcus replied. “That way I know what Dr. Weir’s talking about when she tries to strike up conversation while we’re off-world negotiating for mineral rights or whatever.”

“Boy, does that sound familiar,” said Zoey Young, walking into the cabin.

“Mrs. Young,” Marcus said.

“Really, Marcus, you don’t have to call me that,” she replied. “Do you run around calling Elizabeth ‘Mrs. Sheppard’?”

“No, I call her Dr. Weir.”

Zoey sat down across from them. “Anyway, I know how you feel,” she said. “I took a class from her. It was brutal.”

“She tried to assign me an essay once.”

“She did not!” Ellie exclaimed.

“She did!” he replied. “It was totally surreal, and she was really embarrassed.”

“I’ll bet,” said Zoey.

Then Josh Lyman suddenly burst into the cabin. “There’s something really scary going on down there,” he said. “Women with a bottle of wine. . . Ellie, your Marine friend is kind of frightening.”

Ellie shrugged. “She has useful connections.”

“And Colonel,” Josh added, “President Bartlet’s asking for you.”

Marcus looked up at him. “Maybe that’s something you should have mentioned before stating the obvious about Cadman?”

“Obvious to you, less obvious to. . . others.”

Sighing, Marcus turned and kissed Ellie. “See you in a bit.”

He walked down the plane, past the room where he presumed the women Josh mentioned were having some wine, and into what appeared to be a bedroom. Jed Bartlet was saying, “Well, Matt, the truth is that no one’s been able to hold on to the top seat at the SGC for long since General Hammond left. And with Senate oversight, that’s probably not going to change anytime soon, unless you get someone really familiar with the political process.”

“I understand that,” said a voice over the speakerphone, and Marcus realized that Jed was talking with President Santos. “But someone with political prowess probably won’t have the kind of experience needed for this job, and this job needs stability too. And anyone who really wants the job is probably just looking for the publicity, and that’s certainly not the kind of person I want in that base.”

“I couldn’t agree more.” Jed looked up at Marcus. “I have my daughter’s boyfriend from the Atlantis expedition in here with me. Marcus, you want to be in charge of the SGC for a few years?”

“I think I’d rather sit through Dr. Weir’s lectures on why I’m intelligent but shouldn’t be voting Republican, sir,” he remarked.

The two other men laughed. “Well,” Jed replied, “I’ll talk to Elizabeth about it, see if she’s got an opinion.”

“Speaking of Dr. Weir,” Santos said, “my staff is freaking out a bit over that op-ed.”

“I can imagine,” Jed said. “It’s not like you can censor or discredit her.”

“No, that wouldn’t play well,” Santos replied. “I think right now they just want her not to use her position for her own political aspirations. She tends to overshadow things. People start talking about her as president instead of the things I’m trying to do as the president right now.”

Marcus stiffened. He knew Dr. Weir had written something for a newspaper, but it hadn’t occurred to him that it was in some way political, nor something she would use to her own advantage. He’d always thought of her as a well-informed individual, but never as a politician. And he’d certainly never thought about her as president.

“Helen’s trying to get me off the phone,” Santos continued. “I’m sure we’ll talk about this more at your reception next week. Thank you for your time, sir.”

“Thank you.”

The call ended, and Jed looked up at Marcus sternly. “Voting Republican?”

“You campaigned saying you’d roll back Pentagon procurement, sir,” Marcus replied. “Forgive me, but do you know many people who’d vote to cut their own paychecks?”

“Democrats would, but we’re masochists.” Jed waved at a chair. “Have a seat. This isn’t the ‘what are your intentions toward my daughter’ chat, or even the ‘if you hurt my little girl’ chat. Ellie would kill me.”

“Plus I think we would have had either of those already,” Marcus said, sitting down. “Though there’s something to be said for doing it on a plane, where my chances of escape are greatly diminished.” He frowned. “Which chat is this, sir?”

“Just a chat. You can relax.”

“All due respect, sir,” Marcus said, “but I’m not entirely certain that’s possible. You were commander-in-chief for eight years of my career. Most of that was at the SGC, where my orders sometimes came from you. That’s. . . not something I can just turn off. You may not have the launch codes anymore, but a certain amount of decorum gets hammered into you during basic training.”

“Well,” Jed replied, “depending on what your intentions toward my daughter are, you may have to get over that, or else this is just going to be weird.”

“I thought we weren’t having that chat.”

“We’re not.” He sighed. “I don’t know. I just. . . Ellie’s letters aren’t always the most informative things in the world. I get that she’s happy, but not much else.”

“That’s about what I write home to my parents,” Marcus replied. “I mean, there’s stuff I can’t tell them, but even if I could tell them that I went to such-and-such planet and nearly got killed because I was protecting Dr. Weir, I wouldn’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m already a long way from home,” Marcus said. “They know I’m in danger without me giving specifics. I’d rather tell them stories about getting stuck babysitting the Sheppard boys than depress them.”

“I worry about her sometimes, Marcus,” Jed replied. “Her sisters have always had their secrets, but Ellie’s never been very communicative with me.”

“Ellie likes what she does, sir,” said Marcus, surprised at the softness in the man’s voice. That wasn’t something he was used to seeing out of Jed Bartlet. “She loves her job for a lot of reasons. And I’m not sure what you’re getting at.”

“I just,” Jed began, opening his water bottle. “I just want to know what she’s up to.”

“Couldn’t you just ask her?” Marcus suspected the answer was no, given how rarely Ellie ever talked about her family.

“She’s never liked touting her accomplishments.” Jed took his seat again. “When she got a perfect score on the ACT, I practically had to pry the information out of her.”

“That’s not necessarily a bad thing, you know.”

“It’s frustrating from my end,” Jed answered. “She’s always been closer to Abbey.”

“This may be awfully presumptuous of me,” Marcus said, “but she seems more like you than Mrs. Bartlet.”

“How do you figure that?”

Marcus shrugged. “She went into medicine, but she didn’t become a surgeon or a family physician or something. Research seems more your style than her mother’s. And she’s contemplative to a fault, which was always your public image. She’s cautious, but she’ll jump off the deep end if she feels she has to.”

Jed looked curious. “You seem to read people pretty well.”

“Ellie and I have been together for almost two years, sir,” said Marcus. “I’ve gotten to know her pretty well. I don’t think this would carry over to other people.”

“So what’s she jumped off the deep end for?”

“She delivered Dr. Weir and Colonel Sheppard’s son.”

Jed almost choked on his drink. “You’re kidding me.”

“No, sir,” Marcus replied, smiling. “I was there through all of it. There was a. . . confluence of events that led her, Kate, Cadman, and me being locked in with Dr. Weir when she went into labor. Ellie delivered the baby.”

“Little Josiah? The one who was flirting with my granddaughter?” Jed chuckled and got up slowly. “This is fun. What else have you got on her?”

“Uh, well, she did Dr. Weir’s job a couple days before we left Atlantis.”

“What happened?”

“You’d have to ask Cadman for details,” said Marcus. “Basically, Cadman and one of her sergeants got themselves in trouble and the locals were going to execute them. Ellie was there on a research trip, and even after the rest of Cadman’s team sent back to Atlantis for Dr. Weir, Ellie went and talked the locals out of it.”

“No kidding,” Jed replied. “I knew she’d probably saved a lot of lives in Atlantis, but I always assumed that was. . . you know, medically. She’s never liked having to talk under pressure.”

“Well, Cadman’s still alive and kicking, so I think she’s probably pretty good at it whether she likes it or not,” Marcus said. “The way Cadman tells it, Ellie had to argue pretty hard.”

“Well, I’ll be damned.”

“What, sir?”

“I just always thought Liz was the politician,” said Jed. “And she is, except she had to pay attention to learn how to play the game. I never thought Ellie. . .”

Marcus stayed quiet, having a feeling that that wouldn’t be the last time on this trip that he’d hear that phrase. Ellie loved her family dearly and it was obvious that they loved her too, but there was something very frustrating about the Bartlets. He knew he was biased, but Ellie seemed so much more intelligent than her sisters, and her quietness had resulted in her being overlooked so often.

That, however, was not a subject he wanted to broach with the head of the Bartlet family, so he was quite grateful when Abbey Bartlet opened the door. “Oh, hello, Marcus,” she said. “Jed, promise me you’re not threatening him.”

“We were just talking, Abbey,” he replied, standing up. Marcus stood up too. “Thanks for your time, son. You should probably get some sleep before we get to Oslo.”

“There’s one thing, though,” Marcus said. “President Santos said his staff thought that article that Dr. Weir wrote was for political advantage. But she’s not a politician.”

Both the Bartlets laughed. “She’s certainly got you fooled,” Abbey remarked before coming up to Marcus and kissing his cheek.

Jed dismissed him genially, leaving Marcus to feel a bit like a graduate assistant who had come into the faculty lounge to hear a joke that he didn’t know quite enough about to understand. It had been a long time since he hadn’t been in the loop when it came to Dr. Weir. He’d worked for her for years, and though she was his boss he considered her a friend. The idea that others had such a wildly dissimilar notion of her was vaguely unsettling.

* * *

  
Elizabeth, for her part, was not feeling very much like any previous incarnation of herself, whether it was leader, teacher, diplomat, or politician. If anything, she felt like all her jobs had joined together to ram into her headlong in the form of Josiah, not quite two years old. Peter, for as much as he was like John, was easier to discipline. Siah was too much like herself.

The standoff over sleep had ended with a victory for Mom and bedtime for Siah. Elizabeth had never imagined that negotiating with her son would be as trying as negotiating with Rwanda, for example, but she was feeling similar levels of exhaustion now. He was surprisingly verbal for his age, but unlike Peter, he’d not yet reached the point where he understood that events had reasons behind them, or that Mom ruled the world. At least where he was concerned.

Josiah had just fallen asleep when there was a light rap on the doorway and Marcus Lorne walked in. “Colonel,” Elizabeth said quietly.

“You look exhausted, ma’am,” he replied.

She nodded toward her son. “We did ten rounds on bedtime before he gave in to my superior. . . something.”

He sat down across from her with a smile on his face. “He snores?”

Elizabeth murmured an affirmative, not telling Marcus that Siah had gotten that trait from her. “I’m surprised you’re still up,” she commented, changing the subject.

“President Bartlet and I were having a chat.”

Amused, she asked, “Oh? Which chat was it?”

“Non-predatorial?” He sighed. “There’s something I’m missing with this family.”

Elizabeth stiffened, but decided to beat around the bush instead of asking directly what he wanted. “They telling you stories about the pirate?”

He looked curious, but got to the point, as she knew he would. “I meant something with the people here,” he clarified. “I’m not sure how to explain it. Drama, I guess.”

She raised a brow, shifting uncomfortably. “You want me to give up information on the Bartlets?”

“I’m hearing vague references about Liz and her ex-husband,” Marcus replied. “Zoey will talk with anyone, but doesn’t say much. And in the two years I’ve known Ellie, she’s never brought up her parents. The only time she talks about them is when someone else mentions them.”

She thought about twenty years of friendship with Jed Bartlet and wondered how much of that confidence she should share. But the truth was that if Marcus was really serious about Ellie, the information was for his own good, and it wasn’t like Ellie was likely to volunteer it.

“Liz left her husband after he embarrassed the family with a campaign for a House seat,” she began. “You might remember that he had an affair with the twenty-six-year-old nanny. But Liz married him when she was twenty-two and gave up a Rhodes scholarship. Zoey took every opportunity she could to sneak away from her Secret Service protection, and then her French prince boyfriend slipped ecstasy in her drink and she got kidnapped because she was too strung out to hit her panic button. Ellie was in elementary school when her father was elected to Congress. When he won his first Nobel, he spent half the evening bragging to King Gustav about how smart and talented Ellie was, but he wasn’t around much when she was in elementary school.”

“So,” Marcus said, “what are you trying to say?”

“That it’s complicated,” Elizabeth replied. “I’ve known Jed Bartlet for about two decades now, and I still don’t understand everything that goes on in his family.”

“That’s not very encouraging.”

“For a public figure, he’s an intensely private man,” Elizabeth explained, a very small smile on her face. “Ellie’s a lot like him, just. . . with less ego. He’s never intentionally involved any of his children in his career, and she’s never used her father’s position to advance her own career. She almost didn’t take the Atlantis job because of how it might look.”

“Well, I’m glad she got over that,” he remarked.

“So am I,” Elizabeth replied. “Just for different reasons.”

Marcus smiled at that. “What are your reasons? Not like you’re in the infirmary a lot.”

“Have you noticed that Ellie’s been going on a lot of off-world missions?” she asked. “A lot more than any other researcher on the expedition does. More than she has to.”

“She likes the work, even if it’s dangerous.”

“I think the incident with Cadman and Santana wasn’t the first time Ellie had exercised some talents that no one back here on Earth knew about.” Elizabeth pulled Siah further back in his chair where he was sleeping, as he had turned over and was dangerously close to falling off. “I was looking through some records while I was in Chicago. Statistics, mostly. That’s John’s area; he says it’s relaxing for him. He puts together these random trivia sheets for me. Anyway, there was one on the disc this time about who requires the most military or diplomatic intervention. He’s on the top of that list, of course. You’re somewhere in the middle, but Ellie’s dead last. Why do you suppose that is?”

“She takes care of problems before intervention is needed,” Marcus replied. Then his eyes widened. “You’re thinking about putting her in charge of Atlantis.”

Elizabeth gave him a small smile. “Thinking about it, yes,” she said. “I doubt she’s confirmable with the current Senate. Her father still has enemies in Washington.”

“Despite the fact that he’s accepting his second Nobel in a couple days?”

“Yes, despite that.” She sighed. “It’s a fickle business, politics. Mistakes and hatred long outlive success and love. Anyway, President Santos is likely to nominate someone outside the expedition to replace me when I go.”

“Why?” Marcus asked, looking rather confused. “Wouldn’t it make more sense to get someone who already knows the ropes?”

“If I’d been thinking four years ago about my eventual replacement,” she replied, “yes, it would have. But I wasn’t thinking about the fact that I was going to leave eventually. I was getting married, dealing with new threats in the Pegasus galaxy, trying to hold the expedition together while the House Stargate Operations Committee was trying to pull it apart. You remember what it was like. There wasn’t time to think about who was going to carry the torch after us. So there’s no one with the diplomatic skills in the expedition who can get through Senate confirmation hearings. In a couple years, Ellie can, but not now.”

Slowly, Marcus nodded. “Are you and Colonel Sheppard thinking about leaving Atlantis soon?”

Elizabeth hesitated, thinking about her conversation with Jed while she was writing the op-ed on the Geneva Convention. Above all else, he’d told her not to make these decisions without making sure John was on board. “We’ve talked about it,” she said slowly. In truth, she had a feeling that they’d be leaving Atlantis by the end of the following year.

“Are you running for president, ma’am?”

She smiled wryly. “It’s a possibility. But you should get some sleep.”

He got up to leave, but at the doorway he said, “If you did, ma’am, I’d think about voting for you.”

Elizabeth pulled a blanket out of a bin and settled back down in her seat. “Thank you, Colonel. That’s the most intelligent thing you’ve said in a long time.”

* * *

  
Oslo City Hall was a very modern building, with red brick and clean lines, though Marcus thought it looked a bit like the buildings his little brother made with blocks as a kid, before becoming a structural engineer. The inside, however, was nothing like his brother’s creations. They came into the main hall and found themselves surrounded by marble and murals of Viking life. Not far away from Marcus and Ellie, Ellie’s father was telling Donna and Josh about the Vikings. Josh looked like he wanted to run away.

Another passenger on the trip, Charlie Young’s sister Deanna, had volunteered to keep the kids at the hotel while the rest came here to run through the protocol for the award ceremony. Marcus didn’t envy her the task of looking after five children under the age of six. But the upside was that there wasn’t a pack of kids running around and screaming in the very loud hall.

“The reception for family and friends will take place in one of the smaller chambers,” a Norwegian woman was explaining. “A private event. No press allowed. The award ceremony will be in here that evening.”

Abbey was listening intently, but it seemed she was the only one. Even Ellie was spacing out a bit. Then a blonde naval officer whom Marcus didn’t recognize came up to Dr. Weir and quietly said, “Dr. Weir, I don’t think we’ve ever been formally introduced. Kate Harper. I was President Bartlet’s deputy National Security Advisor.”

“Admiral,” Elizabeth replied. “Haven’t seen you since. . . that thing, back then.”

“‘That thing, back then’?” Jed repeated. “Eloquent, Elizabeth.”

“Do you really want to have this argument, sir?” she said, giving him a look that Marcus had only seen when she was angry with Sheppard.

“On second thought, no.”

Elizabeth turned her attention back to the admiral. “Do I ever get to find out what was really going on then, by the way?” she asked.

“Not unless your security clearance gets a lot higher,” Harper replied.

“Well, that’s reason enough to run for president. Quick, someone get Josh’s attention.”

“Ma’am, what are you talking about?” Marcus asked.

“I’d tell you, but Admiral Harper here would have to kill you.”

“Seriously?” Ellie said.

“Ladies, gentlemen, _please_ ,” said their Norwegian guide. “Now, if you’ll follow me?”

As the group walked off, Ellie said to Marcus, “So what do you think, she had a stint with the CIA at the end of the Cold War?”

“That, or a torrid affair with the admiral in Uruguay.”

At that, Weir and Harper looked over their shoulders and glared.

They spent the rest of the day as official guests of Norwegian government. There were hands to shake and protocol to review, so it was a pretty busy day. That evening, after they’d settled in at the hotel, Marcus took Ellie to dinner alone, figuring that he owed her at least one real date while they were on Earth, even if they were being watched by Secret Service agents.

“This was a good idea,” she said as dessert was served. “Good to have the space.”

“Good to get out of the entourage, you mean?” Marcus replied, and she smiled. “Yeah, I know what you mean. Now if I can just talk you into declining Secret Service protection.”

“My father would be very unhappy if I did that,” Ellie said, holding her hand out to him. He squeezed her fingers. “And in a couple years it’ll be over. They don’t keep agents on family members forever.”

Someone ambled up to the table, and Marcus looked up to see Josh Lyman hovering. “Ellie, hi,” the man said.

“Hello, Josh,” Ellie replied, quickly masking a look of irritation. “How are you doing these days?”

“Eh, you know,” he said. “They say having kids keeps you young, but nobody’s told my hairline that.” He turned his attention to Marcus. “I don’t think we were really introduced before. I’m Josh Lyman.”

“Marcus Lorne.”

“Of the Atlantis expedition,” Josh filled in.

Donna Moss walked up behind him and laid her hand on his arm. “Josh,” she said, “please tell me you can add two and two together and get four.”

Josh looked confused for a moment and then jumped slightly. “Candles, wine, handholding,” he said. “You two are on a date. I’m so sorry for interrupting.”

“We’re still working on integrating him back into society,” Donna explained. “It’s not an easy task.”

“Well, listen,” he said, “I’d love to talk to you two for real before all’s said and done.”

“ _Josh_.”

“Coming, dear.”

Ellie laughed softly as the pair retreated. “He’s odder than he seems on television,” Marcus remarked.

“I don’t know. He comes off as pretty eccentric when he’s on TV.” Ellie’s smile faded a little. “Hey, what did Dad want from you last night?”

“He just wanted to talk. I think he may tell you he hates me on principle.”

“Why?”

“Because I tend to vote Republican.”

“Wow,” Ellie said, taking a bite of her dessert. “Not many people argue politics with my dad anymore. He tends to steamroll people.”

“I wouldn’t say we talked politics,” he replied. “It was more like something being said about Dr. Weir running for president someday. I got laughed at when I said she didn’t strike me as a politician.”

She snickered. “As well you should,” she said. “What do you think a diplomat is, if not a politician? Dad met Elizabeth when she was lobbying for an anti-military group.”

“So you think she’s going to be president someday?” Marcus asked, feeling somewhat annoyed for having been so out of the loop on this.

“My father thinks so,” Ellie replied. “And he’s usually right about this kind of thing.” She paused, looking thoughtful. “I’ve wondered since Josiah was born if she and John were thinking about leaving Atlantis sometime in the near future. President Santos probably would have made her Secretary of State if she’d come back after Vinick’s retirement. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was serious talk of it. And I know the party’s wanted her to run for something ever since the disclosure.”

Marcus shook his head. “I thought you didn’t like politics.”

“When your family makes its living baking bread, you learn how to bake bread whether you like it or not,” she said. “Besides, if you think science hasn’t been as politicized as the military, you’re out of your mind.”

He tapped her foot. “Yes, Ellie, I have a basic understanding of the political process.”

“You’re one of the only ones in Atlantis who does,” she replied. “I wonder who Elizabeth’s got in mind as her replacement.”

“Hmm?”

“Elizabeth wouldn’t think about leaving the expedition without considering who would replace her,” Ellie said. “And I can’t really think of anyone within the expedition with the experience to do her job.”

Marcus thought for a moment about telling her about his conversation with Dr. Weir, but decided against it. There were times when she relied on his discretion, and he suspected this was one of them. If Ellie needed to know, Dr. Weir would take care of it herself. Even though it involved Ellie, it wasn’t strictly his business to repeat.

He decided on neutrality. “I’m sure she has someone in mind.”


	4. Chapter 4

The Nobel Suite of the Grand Hotel, where Ellie’s parents were staying, had balconies overlooking the city of Oslo. After two years in Atlantis, it seemed odd to her to step out on a balcony and not find a far more distant horizon. They were not far from the North Sea, but the city smelled of industrialization, not of salt water. The sunrise was beautiful, but it was little like the morning Marcus had taken her up above Atlantis to see the sunlight splashed over the ocean.

She smelled Marcus’ aftershave before he touched her, hands on her shoulders and skimming down to her elbows. He wrapped his arms around her, holding her close in the chill of the December morning. He began to kiss her neck softly, and Ellie smiled. “The Secret Service let you in?”

“I think your dad likes me,” he murmured, kissing her at the collarbone before resting his clean-shaven cheek against her neck.

“If you keep that up, he won’t continue to,” she teased. Still, she leaned against him comfortably. He was wearing a charcoal grey sweater that she loved, and had stolen from him more than once.

“Ellie,” her father said from within the room.

She turned out of Marcus’ arms to step inside again. “Yes, Dad?” she said.

“We keep getting calls from people wanting to interview you,” he said, leaning against his cane a little more heavily than usual.

“And you haven’t tried to order the agents to kill them yet?”

“Well, it seems they want to interview you about you, not about me,” he replied. “Shocking, I know, but the press has developed a healthy interest in an oncologist on the Atlantis expedition.”

“They don’t want Dr. Weir?” Ellie asked. “She’s the one who’s always good in front of the cameras.”

“I think her press schedule’s pretty tight.” Jed sat down in a recliner. “I suppose you’ll want someone to call them back and tell them no. Your mother told them not to count on it.”

“Why not?” Marcus asked, behind her.

“Ellie’s never been fond of the press,” her father replied. “None of us have, but she. . .”

“Is knowledgable, articulate, personable,” Marcus filled in. “Ellie, why wouldn’t you want to?”

Ellie looked from Marcus to her father, who was looking at her boyfriend in something akin to awe. She wasn’t entirely certain that was the right interpretation of the look on his face, though. She opened her mouth a few times before she finally said, “I’ve never really considered it.”

“Do the interview,” Marcus replied with a shrug. “Unless it’s. . . I don’t know, _Meet the Press_ or something. Then I wouldn’t do the interview.”

Jed chuckled. “He’s got a point.”

Ellie shook her head. “Why would they want to interview me?”

“Amazing as it may seem, sweetheart,” her father replied, “the press seems to have developed an interest in you that has nothing to do with me or with politics.”

She looked back and forth between the two men uncertainly.

* * *

  
“He’s letting me prep her, right?”

“CJ,” Charlie said as they walked together into the hotel, “it’s been years since you were press secretary. When do you think you’re going to stop acting like one?”

“Probably when they put me in a box and toss me in the ground,” CJ replied. “It’s a lot like. . .”

“Riding a bike?”

“Yeah, I was going for something less cliché than that, but then my brain stopped.”

“Like Josh tripping over that cord that ran across the hallway, despite the fact that he did it every day and we mocked him about it all the time?”

“That’s less cliché, but it still makes me feel stupid.”

“Whatever you say, boss.”

They stepped into an elevator, and CJ exhaled as the doors closed. “Someday you’ll have minions who’ll mock you endlessly, and you’ll appreciate how kind and benevolent I was as your dictator.”

“You already gave me a whole staff of minions,” Charlie said. “We spend our time together figuring out how to mock you.”

“Remind me to fire you in the morning.”

“‘Good night, Westley, good work, I’ll most likely kill you in the morning.’”

“What?”

“Man, CJ, you need to take a break and watch movies more often.”

Donna was near the elevator when they reached the floor. “Donna,” CJ said, “do you know what’s going on with this Ellie thing?”

“You realize I don’t work for any of you anymore, right?” Donna replied, heading down the hall with them.

“I just wondered if maybe Josh–”

“I certainly don’t work for Josh anymore. His children, maybe.” She held out her hands. “CJ, I have no idea what’s going on. As far as I know, the world’s coming to a swift and decisive end.”

“CJ,” said a voice down the hall. She whirled around to see Dr. Weir coming out of her room. “If you’re going to talk to Ellie about this interview, I’d like to be there for it.”

“Why?” Charlie asked.

The door right next to CJ swung open suddenly, and she jumped and screamed a little. “CJ,” Ellie said, stepping out into the hall, “sorry to startle you.”

“I’m getting used to it, unfortunately.”

“I heard a lot of talking. Do you need something?”

Weir came up and said, “Ellie, would you mind if CJ and I sit down with you before you do this interview?”

“Sure,” Ellie replied. “I was going to ask you two to help me prepare for it, actually.”

“Well,” CJ said, “that’s that. When’s a good time for you?”

“If you’re both free, I could do it now.”

“Works for me.” CJ turned to Weir. “You?”

“I’m free.” As the three women walked inside, Elizabeth asked, “Who’s doing this interview anyway?”

“Chris Powers, ABC,” CJ replied.

“I thought she wrote for _Newsweek_ ,” Weir said.

“She got hired by CNN about six months after President Bartlet left office.”

“The things you miss in another galaxy. What’s she doing with ABC now?”

“Heading up their London desk. She came here for the Nobel thing because she covered the Bartlet administration.” CJ turned her attention to Ellie. “It’s important that you decide what kind of image you want to portray in this interview.”

“Image?” Ellie said.

Sitting down at the room’s small table, Elizabeth said, “There are a lot of different ways you can present yourself in this kind of interview, Ellie. The politician’s daughter, the aunt and sister and daughter far from home, the studious researcher, or even the occasional physician. I suspect you’ll end up with some blend of these.”

“Which would you like to emphasize?” CJ asked.

“I hadn’t thought about it,” Ellie replied. “What would be best for the expedition?”

“We haven’t had to go far for good press since disclosure,” Weir said. “I guess what it comes down to is why you decided to do the interview.” Ellie looked hesitant, and Weir added, “Why did you decide to do this interview?”

“Marcus kind of talked me into it,” she said, looking a little embarrassed about it. “He didn’t understand why Dad assumed I’d turn all the offers down.”

“Well, it is a good opportunity for the expedition,” Elizabeth replied.

“You could do something with your niece Sophie,” CJ suggested. “It’d be a good ice breaker to start off with you trying to keep in close contact with your family, especially since Zoey was pregnant when you left, and you didn’t get to see the baby until a couple weeks ago.”

Ellie shook her head. “Dad wouldn’t like that.”

“What if you did something with Siah?” Elizabeth said, sitting back in her chair. “You know him pretty well, he isn’t camera-shy, he’s named after your father, and you have a special connection to him.”

“What’s that?” CJ asked.

“Ellie delivered him,” Elizabeth replied. “It would set a good tone. Better than the tone you’d get with Sophie. With her, you get something of a melancholy look at life in Atlantis, but with Josiah–”

“You get its unpredictability and how it brings new challenges to everyone, in the best possible sense,” CJ finished.

“Exactly,” said Elizabeth. “Ellie, for a former president’s daughter, you’re a relatively unknown person. Maybe this is the venue for you to change that.”

Ellie shook her head. “Why would I want to do that?”

“Why’d you agree to do the interview?” Elizabeth smiled. “You’re a puzzle, Ellie. You surprise people quite a lot. From what I’ve seen in the last two years, I think it’s a useful trait for you. So do it with this interview.”

* * *

  
“Most of us who covered your father’s administration were surprised when we heard you were going to Atlantis,” Chris was asking, and CJ reflected that it was rather odd to be there. She hadn’t watched an interview from the sidelines in years.

“Why?” Ellie said.

“It takes you out of the limelight here most of the time, but there have been more pictures of you in the last few weeks than in the eight years your father was in office,” said Chris.

“Atlantis was a tremendous opportunity for me,” Ellie replied. “It’s been an amazing experience, and I don’t expect that to change any time soon. It’s given me – well, it’s given all of us the chance to grow as people and in our careers.”

“Like delivering your boss’s baby?”

Ellie laughed. “Exactly.”

“Well,” said Chris, “as I was saying, there have been a lot of pictures of you here in Norway. I think a lot of people have been intrigued by a man who appears with you in many of them.”

CJ thought Ellie was actually blushing a little. “My boyfriend,” she explained. “Marcus Lorne.”

While Chris continued asking about Ellie’s boyfriend, CJ quietly walked over to where President Bartlet was also watching. “She’s doing very well,” she commented.

“Yeah, but what does her dating life have to do with anything?” Jed asked, though he was smiling.

“Dr. Weir thought this might be a good opportunity for Ellie to hone a public image of herself. That’s not something she did while you were in office.”

“I probably would have revoked her tuition if she’d tried,” Jed replied. “Though first I would have had a heart attack at her forwardness.”

“Yes, sir.” CJ smiled.

“Wait a minute. Elizabeth wanted her to hone a public image?”

“It was her idea,” CJ said.

“For crying out loud,” he said, “what is that woman doing now?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“She seems to be stirring up her very own press cycle,” CJ mused.

“Isn’t that the truth,” Jed replied. “The woman’s running for president already.”

“I’m having a hard time imagining her ever declaring what party she belongs to, let alone running for public office.”

“Yeah, Elizabeth Weir’s affiliation with the Democratic party is one of the worst-kept secrets in Washington, but she’s never publicly stated it,” Jed said. “By the time she declares it, she’ll be running the world.”

“Benevolently?”

“Iron fist in a velvet glove, I suspect.”

C. J. smiled again and looked up at Ellie. “She’s doing very well,” she said again.

“She used to be terrified of doing this kind of thing,” Jed remarked.

“Weren’t we all, sir?”

“Yeah, but Ellie was so shy,” he continued. “She hated getting up to give a book report. I think she was sometimes scared of talking to me about school. She’s not easy for anyone to get to know, which may be why I like her boyfriend.”

“Because he was persistent enough to get to know her?” CJ asked. “If you don’t mind my saying so, sir, I’ve always thought Ellie was an extraordinarily talented and intelligent woman.”

“You don’t have to suck up to me anymore. You know that, right?”

“Yes, sir,” CJ replied. “That’s how you know I mean it.”

Jed looked up at her, and she was struck suddenly by how much she missed working for this man. She didn’t miss the White House, and she loved the work she was doing, but she missed Jed Bartlet tremendously. He was a good man, and she had no doubt that everyone who had worked with him and for him would agree with her on that.

“She’s changed, CJ,” he said softly. “The woman of the hour. Her boyfriend didn’t understand why she wouldn’t want to do an interview. I remember when she was little and almost all she wanted to do was read or practice arithmetic. ‘Playing math,’ she called it. She’d play doctor with her dolls as patients. When her friends got into fights, she almost always ended up working it out.”

“So how has she changed?” CJ asked.

“She’s realized how good she is at all those things,” he explained. “Marcus said she saved Laura Cadman’s life by talking some people out of killing her, when she could have waited for Elizabeth to show up and negotiate the release. Here on Earth she could always hide under her parents’ shadows. She’s come out of her shell, CJ, and become something. . . unexpected.”

“Unwelcome?”

“No,” he replied, shaking his head. “Something I always hoped she’d find in herself.”

* * *

  
Saturday was the big day, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death and the day which would honor the year’s Nobel laureates. As a result, Ellie Bartlet found herself with hardly a moment to spare from the crack of dawn onward.

She hadn’t gone to Sweden with her parents years before, when her father had been the economics laureate. She’d only been in third grade at the time, and the events in Sweden were far too formal to bring along young children. The Norwegian ceremonies were more relaxed (much to her father’s dismay), but Ellie had a hard time imagining what it would be like to be in Stockholm instead of Oslo on this day. If this was casual, she didn’t want to see formal.

The one major benefit, which had hardly gone unmentioned by any of the women on the trip, was seeing Marcus in uniform all day. He was more decorated than Ellie would have imagined, given that his career was still largely classified. Still, he sat through the ceremony and her father’s lecture better than any of the other people from the expedition, unless she were to start comparing anyone to Elizabeth.

Then, when evening came, the group donned evening wear and headed into the Mirror Room of the hotel, where the banquet in honor of Jed Bartlet was being held. The room glowed, filled with music and color. As Ellie’s parents led their party inside, the guests applauded, and Ellie couldn’t help but smile. She’d hated this kind of pomp when her father was in the White House, but now it was kind of fun.

Her parents went off to sit with the Norwegian royal family, along with Liz and Elizabeth. The rest were ushered over to a large table nearby, and dinner was served. The entree was a French dish involving duck, and the best food Ellie had had in two years. Between courses, she looked around the table and had to smile. Marcus, Kate, and Laura looked so overwhelmed.

“Charlie and I are headed to Mauritania in two weeks,” CJ said as dessert was served. “We’re scouting locations for a desalinization plant. The drought there in the last couple years has been devastating.”

“You still working for Franklin Hollis?” Ellie asked.

“You mean, is he still giving me obscene amounts of money and letting me fix whatever I think needs fixing?” CJ asked. “Yeah, it’s a decent enough way to earn a living till Chuckles here finds me a better gig.”

“Well,” said Marcus, “if he ever decides that he wants to set up a charitable foundation to support the impoverished members of the Atlantis expedition. . .”

CJ just laughed.

“This is really weird, you know?” Marcus said, leaning over to Ellie.

“What’s weird about it?”

He gave her a look. “I shook hands with the King of Norway this afternoon, Ellie,” he said. “And now I’m at a formal dinner with all of these people who could probably get me elected in a heartbeat if they wanted to.”

“They wouldn’t. You’re a Republican.” Ellie smiled and kissed him lightly.

“Care to share with the rest of us, Ellie?” Josh asked somewhat loudly from across the table.

“I’m not kissing you, Josh,” she replied. “Kate, on the other hand. . .”

“Which one?” both Kates asked.

“Does it matter?”

“Well, since Admiral Harper could probably break me in half,” Josh said.

“Plus she’s married,” Donna interjected. “Plus _you’re_ married. To me.”

“Oh, yeah.”

“So, Ellie,” C. J. said, “I didn’t get to hear how you ended up bringing two military officers home with you, or how well that went over.”

“Hey,” said Kate, “what about me?”

“They introduced you as Dr. Heightmeyer,” Donna said. “I think we all kind of assumed that you and Ellie work together.”

“Not really,” Ellie replied. “Kate’s a psychologist.”

“Yes, Mrs. Bartlet and I have already done ten rounds on what constitutes medical treatment,” Kate added merrily.

“There’s what, four hundred people on the expedition these days?” Charlie said. “I think CJ’s point was you four seem like an unlikely group.”

“Kate was with the original group that set out,” Ellie explained. “Marcus was on the _Daedalus_ when it first came to the Pegasus galaxy, during the siege. Laura joined not long after that. She got to know Kate when she got stuck. . . Actually, I probably can’t tell you that story.”

“Why not?” Ainsley Hayes asked.

“I don’t know what kind of clearance it requires.”

“Hey,” Josh began, “was that the one where she and that guy McKay. . .”

“Yeah,” Marcus said.

Josh snorted. “Man, that was hilarious.”

Laura reached around Kate to smack him. “It was terrifying.”

“Right, so now that we’re all confused,” CJ prompted. “Except I think I do know what you’re talking about.”

“Anyway,” Ellie said, “Marcus and Kate were seeing each other for a while, so that’s how those three met. I got to Atlantis two years ago, spent my first day and a half in surgery, and these three took pity on me.”

“Lorne already had his eye on her, though,” Laura said.

“I’d throw something at her,” Marcus said, “but that’s actually true.”

“Plus we’re at a banquet hosted by the Norwegian royal family,” Ellie suggested.

“That too.”

This, however, did not stop Laura from getting bored a few minutes later and daring Josh that she could hang her spoon on her nose for ten minutes while continuing to talk. Ellie exchanged a look with Kate Harper, who seemed half-amused, half-horrified. Then two tall figures approached the table from the other side, and Kate smacked Laura hard enough to leave a red mark on Laura’s bare arm. Still, the spoon didn’t fall off. “What are you doing?” Laura demanded, glaring.

The older of the two men stepped up behind Charlie and Zoey and said, “Admiral Harper, it is good to see you again.”

“Your Majesty, it’s good to be here in Norway again,” Kate replied. The younger man was smiling at Laura and shaking his head.

“My son and I came here to be introduced to the rest of President Bartlet’s party, though I do recognize a few faces already,” he explained. “Would you be so kind?”

“Certainly, sir,” she said. “Dr. Eleanor Bartlet, Atlantis expedition; Lieutenant Colonel Marcus Lorne, Atlantis expedition; CJ Cregg and Charlie Young, Hollis Foundation; Zoey Bartlet Young; Ainsley Hayes, former White House counsel; Donna Moss, chief of staff for First Lady Helen Santos; Josh Lyman, chairman of the Democratic National Committee; Dr. Kate Heightmeyer, Atlantis expedition; and the woman here with the spoon on her nose is Captain Laura Cadman, also of the Atlantis expedition. Ladies and gentlemen, King Harald V, and Crown Prince Haakon of Norway.”

“Dr. Weir must work you very hard in the Pegasus galaxy, Captain,” the king said to Laura.

For once in her life she seemed properly subdued. “I apologize, sir,” she said, finally taking the spoon off her nose.

King Harald laughed. “No, no, this event is always too stuffy,” he said.

“It was on a bet,” Laura explained.

“Which she lost,” said Josh.

“Well,” said Prince Haakon, “I came here to ask one of President Bartlet’s guests to join me in the first dance. I would have asked Dr. Weir, but Lord Marbury got to her first.”

“Marbury’s here?” Josh said. “Right, Donna, you’re staying with me or with Charlie the rest of the evening.”

“I can’t help it if Lord Marbury finds me charming,” Donna said.

“When you drink that much, you find everyone charming,” Haakon replied. “And I believe I’ve found my victim for the first dance.”

His gaze fell on Laura, who had to be poked simultaneously by both Kates to get her to look up again. Her eyes widened when she realized what was going on, and he added, “Consider it penance for playing with the silverware.”

“Um, sure,” Laura said. “I mean. . . Yes, your Highness.”

“Royal Highness,” Kate Harper whispered.

“Royal Highness,” Laura corrected.

Still chuckling, the crown prince came around the table and held out his hand. Laura looked vaguely terrified, but took his hand anyway and followed him to the dance floor. While the music started and the couples began to dance, Ellie leaned over to Kate Harper and said, “Think her boyfriend has some competition?”

“He’s married,” Kate replied. “Two kids. Still, he _is_ royalty, and–”

“I certainly wouldn’t kick him out of bed.”

“Ellie!” Marcus said.

“Well, I wouldn’t kick you out of bed either.”

“All of us girls actually came to that consensus a couple days ago,” Ainsley said.

“Okay,” Marcus said, “this is a little weird now.”

“You love the attention and you know it,” Ellie replied.

“Okay,” Josh said, standing up and messing with his bow tie, “I need to play knight in shining armor for a minute.”

“What do you mean?” Donna asked.

“I’m going to rescue Dr. Weir from the clutches of Lord Marbury,” he announced. “And then I’m going to take advantage of that.”

“Take advantage of that?” CJ repeated. “How?”

“By not letting her avoid the conversation she’s been trying to avoid since she got back from Atlantis.”

As he walked off, Ellie looked at Marcus and remembered their conversation from a few nights before. Suddenly she’d gotten the feeling that Elizabeth Weir’s departure from Atlantis was looming closer than anyone had anticipated.

* * *

  
“So how are things in Atlantis?” Marbury asked Elizabeth as they began to waltz.

”Busy,” Elizabeth said. “Extremely busy.”

“Well, with two children, I would imagine so,” he replied. “And I imagine your husband keeps you busy as well.”

“He does do his part,” she said, smiling. “He’s helpful most of the time.”

“Was there a reason he didn’t come this time?”

Before she could answer, a hand landed on Lord Marbury’s shoulder, and they stopped dancing to see that Josh Lyman had approached them. “Gerald!” Marbury exclaimed. “Though I suppose there’s a new Gerald now, isn’t there?”

“Yes, there is,” Josh replied. Elizabeth smiled to herself, remembering how much Leo had _hated_ that about Marbury. And at least once she’d heard CJ refer to the ambassador as Little Lord Fauntleroy.

“So what can I do for you, whilst we stand in the way?” Marbury asked.

“Actually, I need to speak with Dr. Weir,” Josh replied. “Something’s come up.”

“I do hope the children are all right,” said the ambassador.

Josh took Elizabeth by the elbow and pulled her aside. “You’re welcome,” he said.

“For what?” she asked, smoothing out the bodice of her gold silk gown.

“Rescuing you from Marbury,” he replied. “Prince Haakon told us he got to you fast.”

“He’s mostly harmless,” Elizabeth said as they walked slowly toward an exit. “Notice how he almost never flirts with single women?”

“And that’s harmless?”

“I don’t think he ever seriously expects a married woman to run off with him,” she replied. “And those are generally the only women he hits on while he’s working.”

“You should talk to Kate Harper about that.”

“I said generally.”

They walked out into a corridor, and Elizabeth’s agent on duty followed them out. “How privately do you want to talk to me, Josh?”

“How privately can we get?”

She looked over her shoulder. “Travis, how much do you trust him?”

“As much as you want me to, ma’am,” the agent replied.

Josh still hadn’t let go of her arm, and a few more feet down the hall, he leaned into a door and pulled her into a room. “Josh,” she said, “this is the women’s restroom.”

“Probably cleaner than the men’s restroom.” Travis stood outside as the door slowly closed. “And we’re not going to be disturbed in here. You’ve been avoiding this since we got on the plane in Boston.”

“Before that, actually,” Elizabeth said, feeling somewhat absurd that a conversation of this magnitude was taking place in a restroom.

“Yes, well, we’re having this conversation now.” He leaned against the counter. “The party needs you, Dr. Weir. The country needs you.”

“As I see it, I’ve been serving the country for the last several years, Josh,” she replied.

“You have,” he said. “You’ve served the country and the international community for your entire adult life. You’ve got a track record no one can complain about.”

“I have no domestic track record to speak of,” Elizabeth countered. “You don’t even know what my positions on the major domestic issues are. I have no legislative history for you to review. I’ve never publicly taken a position on a current issue.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Josh argued. “Do you honestly think anyone can beat the woman who led an expedition into another galaxy?”

“Is that what this is about?” she asked. “Am I the sure bet? This is why I was avoiding this conversation with you, by the way.”

“Why?”

“Because you have a reputation of being soulless when it comes to campaigning.”

“I got the first minority president elected,” he said. “You don’t want to be the first woman to sit in that chair?”

“I don’t want to be a statistic, Josh,” she said. “Win or lose, I don’t want to be a novelty candidate. If I run, it’ll be because of the things I believe in.”

“Wow, this is all déjà-vu,” Josh mumbled.

“From what I’ve seen so far, you’re not interested in me as a president,” Elizabeth replied. “You’re interested in me as a candidate. We’re not talking about theory, Josh. We’re talking about sixteen years of Democratic legacy and how you want to keep that going. Have you honestly asked yourself if I’m the person to do that?”

Josh stood there for a moment, staring at his shoes. “The day after I left the White House for good,” he said, “I headed up to New Hampshire to speak with President Bartlet. He’s the only person I know who knows you well. I asked him what he thought about the idea of you as president. He asked me why it took me so long to think of it.”

“Josh. . .”

“You’re a Democrat, Doctor Weir. You’re the daughter of a highly respected and highly effective Cabinet member,” he continued, looking up. “You had your fingers in at least a dozen major treaties before you hit thirty-five. You’ve got a track record on foreign policy that anyone would envy. You can’t be tagged as weak on security. You have name recognition. You speak with authority. When you talk, people listen.”

Elizabeth inhaled slowly. Josh had certainly thought this through, which was what she’d wanted to know. “President Bartlet made me promise him something,” she said. “He made me promise that I wouldn’t commit to anything without talking to my husband first.”

“But you’ll think about it?” Josh asked, sounding relieved. Then his mouth fell open a little. “You started setting it up already with that piece in the _Post_. You weren’t just trying to stir up a debate. You were keeping your name out there.”

“You’re not the only politician in the room, Josh,” Elizabeth replied with a small smile.

“So you’re keeping your options open?” he said. “Not committing to anything now, but not saying no either?”

“Let’s just say we’ll revisit this when the time is right,” Elizabeth said. “And now, I think our absence has become conspicuous.”

She headed toward the door. “Doctor,” Josh said, and she looked over her shoulder. “You wouldn’t be the novelty candidate. Yes, you’d be the first woman to win the nomination and the first to take the oath, but novelties don’t get that far. You will. You’re the real thing.”

Silently, she nodded and left.

* * *

  
Laura came back to the table after the first dance was over, flopping into her chair gracelessly and reaching for her wine glass. “Haven’t you had enough to drink already, Captain?” Kate Harper asked.

“Not nearly enough, ma’am,” Laura replied.

“‘You meet your prince,’” CJ began to sing, “‘a charming prince, as charming as a prince could ever be. . .’”

“Someone hit her,” Laura said.

Marcus moved to smack CJ, but the woman glared at him. “You’re going to hit one of the most powerful women in the world?”

“It wasn’t that bad, Laura,” Ellie said. “And it’s not like the man isn’t attractive.”

“Not a bad dancer, either,” Kate Heightmeyer added.

“I’ve known you for what, six or seven years now?” Marcus said. “I’ve never seen you embarrassed before now.”

Laura stuck her tongue out and downed the rest of her wine.

“Where did Josh go?” Zoey asked.

“Oh, who knows,” Donna replied. “He’s been trying to talk with Dr. Weir since she got back to Earth. There’s no telling how long this is going to take.”

“Well,” Marcus said, standing, “I’m going to dance with my girlfriend, if the rest of you don’t mind.”

Ellie looked up at him, one brow raised. “What if I mind?”

“I’m making sure that ambassador keeps his hands off you,” he said, low in her ear.

She rolled her eyes, but took his hand when he offered it.

“You should wear this color more often,” he said when they reached the dance floor.

“Any color at all would be good,” she said. “I get so tired of wearing those white shirts all the time.”

“True, but this pink is nice. Soft.”

Ellie smiled. “So where’d you learn how to dance?”

“My sister made me,” he replied. “She was a freshman in high school. I was in seventh grade. She threatened; I heeded.”

“Sisters are good for that,” Ellie said. “When Liz was dating her ex, she made Zoey learn to play baseball because that was Doug’s big thing. Never mind the fact that Zoey was maybe five years old and couldn’t hit a ball to save her life.”

“How’d the interview go yesterday?” he asked. “Didn’t get to ask you before.”

“It was fine,” she replied. “Chris asked a lot about you, actually. I’m glad I did it, though. Dr. Weir’s right. I think it’s good for someone other than her to be talking about the expedition. Humanizes it.”

“And you’re a known quantity,” he said. “Plus Dr. Weir trusts you.”

“Elizabeth trusts everyone on the expedition,” Ellie said.

“She’d trust anyone on the expedition with her life,” Marcus replied as the music came to a close. “She’d trust most of them with her children. I don’t think there are that many she’d trust with the press.”

Ellie smiled just a little. “I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or not.”

They headed off the floor, and Marcus squeezed her hand. “I’m not sure either.”

* * *

  
Elizabeth left the party for good before it was actually over. There were more activities scheduled for the following day, and she needed to make sure her children got some sleep. Deanna Young was taking care of all five children on the trip during the functions where it wasn’t appropriate to bring young children along, and Elizabeth was surprised by how quiet the room was when Deanna let her in.

“You got them all to sleep?” Elizabeth asked, stepping inside.

“They’d worn themselves out during the day, I think,” Deanna explained. “Your two were the first to get to sleep.”

“Well, thank you again for doing this,” Elizabeth said. “I’m sure you probably would have preferred to have gone to the ceremonies and the parties and all.”

Deanna shrugged. “It’s what I signed up for. Except it was just going to be my niece.”

Elizabeth smiled. “Five is certainly more challenging than one.”

She walked up to one of the beds where the children were asleep and touched Peter’s face. He woke with a start and opened his eyes. “Mommy,” he said sleepily, “you look very pretty.”

“Thank you, Peter,” she said. “We’re going back to our room now. Can you walk with me?”

He rolled over to the edge and slid off, landing on his feet. In the meantime, Elizabeth lifted Siah from the bed. He stirred, pressed his forehead against her neck, and stuck his thumb in his mouth. “Time to go,” she whispered. “Thanks again, Deanna.”

“You’re welcome.”

They left the room quietly, Peter walking by Elizabeth’s side down the hall. She unlocked the door and let Peter go in ahead of her. He walked up to the bed and laid his head down on the comforter. Elizabeth smiled. He was just a little too short to get up on the bed without help.

She laid Josiah down and helped Peter up before heading to the bathroom to get out of her ball gown. She was in the middle of brushing her teeth when there was a soft knock on the door. On the other side was Travis Keller, who held out a file. “This just came for you, ma’am,” he said. “Report from Atlantis.”

Taking her toothbrush out of her mouth, she took the folder and said, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, ma’am.”

Shutting the door, she went back into the bathroom to finish up in there before heading into the bedroom to read the report. There was nothing of vital importance in it, which was why Atlantis hadn’t made an unscheduled contact with Earth. There were reports and statistics and a ton of minutiae, the kinds of things that her subordinates were sure to give her ample details on when she got back. Their reports tended to be less than complete anyway.

But at the bottom of the file was a note from John.

_Elizabeth,_ it read, _I’ve been thinking about what you mentioned before you left. I think I understand where everyone’s coming from in this, but I’m not ready to make that decision yet. I’m not sure I’m ready to give up everything here in Atlantis. If we leave this place, I don’t want it to be because some politicians thought you ought to run for office. I want it to be for our own reasons. But the bottom line is, I need more time._

_Tell the boys I say hello, and that I love them. I love you too._

_John_

“Mommy,” Peter said once she’d finished reading.

“Peter, you need to go to sleep,” Elizabeth replied, coming over to the bed.

“I miss Daddy,” he said.

She reached over Siah to touch Peter’s cheek. “I know,” she said, lying down. “I miss Daddy too.”

“Can we go home soon?”

Elizabeth thought about eighteen days on board the _Daedalus_ with Peter and Siah, already going a little stir-crazy. But at least on the _Daedalus_ , there would be light at the end of the tunnel. And eighteen days, if nothing else, might give her time to think about what was coming in her future.

After Atlantis.


	5. Chapter 5

Elizabeth left the Bartlets the day after they got back from Europe, with hugs and well-wishes to all, even Liz. There was still much to be worked out between them, but Elizabeth was hopeful about it. Liz was a good woman, and she’d been through a lot. The least Elizabeth could do was show some kindness.

As she got into the black SUV that would take her back to Boston, Jed kissed her boys and told her to remember what he’d said. Many of their conversations had ended that way, but this time she knew exactly what he was talking about. She nodded solemnly and said that she had never broken a promise she’d made to him.

She had one more stop to make before flying back to Colorado. President Santos had asked her to stop by before leaving the planet once more, so she flew down to D. C. and headed from the airport to the White House. She and the boys were ushered into the mural room to wait, which made Elizabeth a little nervous. “Peter, Siah, don’t touch anything,” she said.

“Why?” Peter asked.

“Because I said so,” she replied, not wanting to get into the idea of priceless antiques, or what grubby little fingers could do to the beautiful mural that wrapped all the way around the room.

They didn’t have to wait long, however, as one of the doors soon opened and Helen Santos walked in. “Mrs. Santos,” Elizabeth said.

“Please, call me Helen, Dr. Weir,” the blonde woman replied.

“Then call me Elizabeth,” she said with a smile.

Helen smiled back, shaking Elizabeth’s hand, and then she turned her attention to the boys. “You must be Peter and Josiah,” she said.

“Mommy told us not to touch anything,” Peter said.

Helen laughed. “Believe me, my son Peter broke a lot of things in this building,” she said. “Your mom is right.”

Elizabeth smiled down at her boys while Siah took her hand. “Am I meeting with both you and the president?” she asked.

“No, just Matt,” Helen replied. “He’s in a meeting with the CIA director at the moment. I had an opening in my schedule, so I thought I’d drop by while you waited. I could sit with the boys while you’re in the Oval, if you like.”

“If it isn’t too much trouble,” Elizabeth said.

“We can go down to the mess and get some hot chocolate,” Helen said, looking down at the boys.

Another door opened, and a young, dark-haired woman stepped into the room. “Hello, Mrs. Santos,” she said. “Dr. Weir, the president can see you now.”

Elizabeth nodded and turned to her sons. “Siah, Peter, I need to step out for a few minutes,” she said. “Mrs. Santos is going to stay with you.”

“Come on,” Helen said, holding her hand out to Siah. “We’ll have fun.”

They left with Helen, and Elizabeth looked back at the woman whom she assumed was the president’s secretary. “They’re used to being left for a few minutes here and there with people they don’t know very well,” Elizabeth explained. “One of the unfortunate complications of having children and having my job at the same time.”

The young woman smiled. “If you’ll follow me.”

Elizabeth followed her through the outer office and waited while the secretary opened the door to the Oval and said, “Dr. Weir is here to see you, sir.”

“Show her in,” said the president, and Elizabeth stepped inside.

“Dr. Weir,” Santos said. “So good of you to stop by. Where are your boys? I was hoping to get to see them, too.”

“The First Lady stopped by the mural room while we were waiting,” Elizabeth explained. “She offered to take the boys downstairs to the mess while I’m in here.”

“Well, have a seat,” he replied. “There’s something I wanted to talk to you about.”

“I gathered as much, sir,” she said, sitting.

“General Keating,” Santos began, “at the SGC is retiring.”

“Really,” Elizabeth said. “I thought he had a couple years left before that.”

“Heart condition,” he replied. “The man smoked for fifty years. I don’t think anyone’s surprised, but the doctors told him he had to retire.”

“So you wanted to talk to me about replacements,” she said. “Who’s on the short list? Another Army general?”

“It won’t be Air Force, that’s for sure,” Santos said. “I have the rest of the military establishment screaming at me because the Air Force had custody of this program for so long.”

“And you can’t pick a Marine either, because you were in the Marine Corps,” Elizabeth said. Then she smiled. “Are you thinking of going outside the box?”

“Navy? It’s a possibility.” He sat back in his chair and stared at her. “Do you think it’s a bad idea?”

“No worse than putting a civilian in charge,” Elizabeth replied. “You need someone with experience dealing with the Pentagon and the White House. Some level of diplomatic background wouldn’t hurt either. You can’t do this without some sense of how the political world works, and I honestly have no idea if there’s anyone in or out of uniform who fits that description. More than anything else, you need someone adaptable. Someone who can learn the job. Quickly.”

“Well, I do have someone in mind,” he said. “Lots of experience in the political realm, but not too shabby on field experience. A little young, some might say, but I think that’s all relative anyway. Admiral Kate Harper. I understand you met her about ten years back.”

“Closer to fifteen,” Elizabeth replied, stiffening a little. Suddenly Harper’s presence on the Norway trip was making more sense. At the end of the Bartlet administration, she had been a key player in the White House’s international affairs, but that didn’t account for how she had spent a lot of time just chatting with Elizabeth. Someone somewhere had thought it was a good idea for Elizabeth to get to know her in the civilized world. And that was probably the right idea, because her first reaction was to want Kate Harper as far away from Stargate Command as possible, even though she knew Kate was a pleasant, if somewhat odd person.

“Did you get a chance to talk to her on the trip?” Santos asked.

Elizabeth decided not to answer him directly. She had a pretty good idea that he knew already that Kate had gone out of her way to talk with her as frequently as possible. “I don’t know how much you know of our history,” she replied. “I really can’t give you an answer on whether or not I think she’d be good for the SGC unless I talk to her about it first.”

“I had a feeling.” Santos rose and went to his desk, where he pressed a button on the phone and said, “Ronna, is she here?”

“Yes, sir, I’ll send her in,” the secretary replied. The door opened, and in walked Admiral Harper.

“Admiral,” Santos said, walking across the room to shake her hand, “thanks for coming on such short notice.”

“It was no trouble, sir,” Kate replied. “I was already on my way back to Washington today as it was.”

“I wanted you to talk with Dr. Weir, actually,” he said.

Kate looked confused for a moment. “Well, we got to talk quite a lot during the trip,” she said. “We talked about Belarus and Palestine. . .”

“Mali and Chechnya,” Elizabeth added.

“Well, I’d like to add something to the discussion,” the president replied. “Doctor?”

Elizabeth looked from Santos to Harper and said, “The SGC.”

“Never been there,” Kate replied, shaking her head. “I hear the food’s terrible.”

“Is that the first thing you find out about a base?” Elizabeth asked, somewhat amused.

Kate shrugged. “If you’re going to be living there for a few years, it’s good to know.”

Elizabeth couldn’t help but notice that she didn’t exactly answer the question.

“Well, I’ll cut to the chase,” she said. “General Keating is retiring sooner than anyone anticipated. President Santos thinks you’re a good candidate for his replacement.”

From the look of shock on Kate’s face, Elizabeth guessed that Kate had never given a second thought to the possibility of that command. She was a little surprised that the admiral had been called in for this meeting without being given a clue as to its purpose. Elizabeth glanced at Santos, who looked a little annoyed. Perhaps she wasn’t supposed to give that away quite so quickly, but so it was.

Kate looked at Santos. “I have no idea why you’d think that, Mr. President.”

“You have an impressive background, Admiral,” he replied. “Aide to Admiral Fitzwallace, undercover CIA agent, deputy National Security Advisor. A lot of the work you’ve done would make for a good stepping stone to Stargate Command.”

Kate shook her head, looking a little shell-shocked. “I’m far too low-ranking for the position. It’s a command. It should go to a four-star.”

“We’ve frequently had lower-ranking officers running that base,” Santos replied. “Keating is the only one who actually had the rank.”

“There were reasons for that before the program was disclosed,” Kate said. “The same reasons that my promotion to commander was held off for so long.”

“Admiral,” Elizabeth said, “do you want the job?”

“It’s the opportunity of a lifetime,” she replied. “I’m shocked to be considered for it, but yes, I want the job.”

It was a good sign in Elizabeth’s mind that the admiral was surprised by the prospect. Over the years, she’d met generals and admirals who clearly wanted to be Chairman of the Joint Chiefs someday, and she had no doubt that there were those vying for the honor that had just been bestowed on Kate Harper. But those whose only goal was that command were probably the most unsuited for it. Yes, it was certainly a mark in Harper’s favor.

And really, just from what Elizabeth knew of the woman, she could tell that the admiral would be a good commander of that base, despite almost no previous experience with the SGC. Jed had told her once that without Kate, the peace talks between Israel and Palestine – the agreements that were still holding, almost ten years later – would never have happened, let alone succeeded. She was obviously a talented diplomat, and given her background, she had a keen understanding of politics and international relations. Elizabeth could only guess at what unsavory things were in the woman’s past, but she doubted that any of the base’s previous commanders had covert-free backgrounds.

“Well, Doctor?” Santos prompted.

“She gets my vote,” Elizabeth replied, after a moment more of deliberation.

He stood, and both women stood with him. “My staff hasn’t finished vetting you yet,” he said to Kate, “but I can’t imagine they’ll find anything damaging. You may have a new job by the end of next week, Admiral.”

“Thank you, sir,” she replied, shaking his hand. “It truly is an honor.”

“Now, Dr. Weir, I want to say hello to your kids before you take off,” Santos said. “Let’s head down to the mess.”

Elizabeth nodded. “Sir, may I have a moment with Admiral Harper?”

He looked between the two women curiously, but said, “Sure. I need to talk to Ronna about the schedule for tonight anyway.”

He stepped out of his office, and Kate said immediately, “I’m surprised that you’d be willing to go along with this.”

“It’s been fifteen years,” Elizabeth replied. “I suppose it’s time to move on.”

Kate shook her head. “I haven’t gotten over it. What you had to do for me. I can’t imagine that you have.”

Not breaking eye contact with Kate, Elizabeth replied, “I didn’t say I’d gotten over it.”

They left the room, and Kate excused herself, saying she had a lunch to go to. Elizabeth walked down to the mess with the president, and as they went down the stairs, she said, “Sir, at some point we need to start talking about my replacement.”

He looked at her sharply. “You bailing on me, Doctor?”

“No, sir,” she replied. “It’s an honor and a privilege to serve, but I have a feeling that the time may be coming soon. I wanted to give you fair warning.”

“Well,” he replied, “when you get back to Atlantis, we’ll start a conversation about some names. I’m sure we can figure something out before you decide it’s time.”

* * *

  
Atlantis was still standing when the _Daedalus_ arrived, though it was not from lack of trying. During Elizabeth’s absence of six weeks, there had been a great deal more mayhem than usual, even though John wasn’t going off-world. Or maybe it just felt that way because he had to deal with things that his wife usually would have resolved without even informing him beforehand.

Still, she had only kisses to offer him when she and the children were beamed in from the ship, and no words of criticism over how he’d handled things in her absence. He’d even managed without his executive officer, so maybe he hadn’t done such a terrible job. He’d missed her, though, both in and out of work. The boys had missed him too, probably as much as he had missed them.

During the _Daedalus_ ’ trip from Earth, Atlantis had gotten word that the SGC was now under a new commander, someone John had never heard of. He mentioned Admiral Kate Harper during the staff meeting, and Lorne blanched. John would have to get the full story later, as all he heard about at first was Elizabeth, Admiral Harper, and something about Uruguay.

Elizabeth herself was quiet about the new commander, but said that she’d been consulted on Keating’s sudden replacement. She didn’t volunteer any further information, so John let the subject drop. After all, it had been six weeks since he’d seen her, and that conversation could wait for another time.

That night, when the boys were asleep in the next room, John lay with his arm draped over Elizabeth, running his hand up and down her spine, soft skin under his fingertips. Kissing her shoulder, he said, “You even smell good.”

“Right now I smell like you,” she said, a teasing smile on her face.

“I knew there was a reason I liked the smell.” Before she could rebut, he kissed her, gently pushing her to her back again. She moaned a little and ran her hands up his back, so he figured she didn’t object too strongly. After all, she’d missed him too.

“I love you,” he murmured, kissing her throat. She hummed, but didn’t say anything, so John looked up at her again and said, “Is something wrong?”

Elizabeth shook her head. “I’m just tired, John. And I know that’s supposed to be an excuse, but I really am tired. This wasn’t an entirely relaxing trip.”

He shifted to lie beside her, his hand on her stomach. “Did you get my note?” _In time_ , he almost added, but he trusted her too much to do so.

She nodded. “I haven’t committed to anything, either way,” she said. “Josh has thought this through, though, and I was told that the Republicans have no one they could run against me. But I have to say I agree with you.”

“About?”

“Why we leave Atlantis,” she replied, looking at him. “It’ll be for our own reasons. I promise you that.”

“It’s coming, isn’t it?” he asked, unable to keep a note of disappointment from his voice. As much as he could already guess the very good reasons for leaving, he had a connection to this place that nothing on Earth could equal, and he knew he wasn’t ready to sever it.

“I think so,” Elizabeth said. “I talked to President Santos about it. I didn’t give him a time table, but we’re going to start talking about my replacement. I don’t want to put him in a bind, not after Keating had to retire so suddenly.”

“Do you want to run, Elizabeth?” he asked.

“I don’t know, John,” she said, breathing deeply. “I honestly don’t know.”

They were quiet for a while, and then Elizabeth began, “I know this place means a lot to you because it saved your career, among other things.”

“No,” he said. “Atlantis didn’t save my career. You did. If you hadn’t been so persistent back in Antarctica, I’d be out of the Air Force already.”

She ran her fingers through his hair. “I’ve never regretted it,” she replied. “Not once.”

He smiled broadly at her. “Well, that’s a relief.” And he kissed her again.

* * *

  
Ellie hadn’t known Elizabeth overly well on Earth, but she hadn’t thought of her as a tea drinker. It was something Elizabeth had picked up in Atlantis – John’s taste, she’d confessed. When the coffee supply was running low and the _Daedalus_ was still a week or two away, Elizabeth drank tea exclusively, as a signal to others that they ought to conserve the precious drink as well. Sometimes it worked; sometimes it didn’t.

About once a week, Elizabeth held a meeting over her afternoon tea. Ellie wasn’t overly surprised when, two weeks after their return from Earth, she got a message in her inbox asking her to come up to the control room that afternoon. She handed over an experiment to one of her assistants shortly after lunch and headed to the central tower, where Elizabeth was waiting.

“Thank you for coming, Ellie,” Elizabeth said as they crossed the catwalk. “I usually like to give people more notice than this, but things come up.”

“I understand,” Ellie replied. “Was there something particular you wanted to talk to me about?”

“That’s a silly question, isn’t it?” Elizabeth asked, sitting down in front of her desk and pouring two cups of tea. “Please, have a seat.”

She held out a cup, and Ellie took it as she sat. “So what’s the topic?” she asked.

“You, actually,” Elizabeth replied. “I want to know if you’ve given any thought to how you’d like your role here to evolve.”

“Well, Dr. Beckett–”

“I’m sorry,” she interrupted. “I should have been more specific. I meant outside your work as a researcher.”

Ellie frowned. “I’m not sure what you mean, then.”

Elizabeth set her tea aside. “You go on a lot of off-world missions,” she said. “Do you enjoy that work?”

“Yes,” Ellie answered immediately. “It’s a good change in pace. I get to work with people I wouldn’t normally know, and I get to experience other cultures and deal with them first-hand.”

Elizabeth smiled enigmatically. “I’ve been talking with some people over the last week,” she said. “They say you’re good at it. Good at managing the personnel who go with you. Good at resolving issues before they become incidents.”

“I just pay attention to things,” Ellie replied. “I try to put fires out on my own so you don’t have to.”

“And you’ve done a remarkable job.” Elizabeth picked up a tablet from her desk. “I’ve got an off-world negotiation at the end of the week. It should only be a couple days. If you’re interested, I’d like you to come with me.”

Ellie nodded. “Anything else?”

“This is something I want you to start doing more of,” Elizabeth replied, handing over the tablet. “It occurred to me during our trip that there really is no one else here in Atlantis who has the training to handle much of the work I do here. It’s entirely my fault, but it’s time for me to rectify that. You have your father’s gift for this, and I want to help you hone it.”

Ellie looked down at the tablet and saw a list of files she would need to read before going to this negotiation. Her name was at the top, but what caught her eye was the title below it.

_Deputy Director, Atlantis Expedition_.

“Ma’am?” Ellie said, alarmed. “Are you–”

“Promoting you.” Elizabeth grinned. “If you want it, the position’s yours. I already talked to Carson. He says it’s hard to give you up, but he’s willing to if you want it.”

“I didn’t even know you had a deputy.”

“New position. I’m looking for someone I can trust to do this work with confidence,” she said, and Ellie suddenly knew why Elizabeth had been so pleased about Ellie’s interview back in Norway. She remembered, too, Marcus’ words about Elizabeth’s levels of trust with the members of the expedition. “And I’m looking for someone who can eventually lead this place after John and I leave.”

Ellie shook her head. “My father still has too many enemies,” she said. “There’s no way the current Senate would confirm me.”

Elizabeth shrugged, getting to her feet. “We’ll see if the midterms bring a more amenable Senate. I’m not going anywhere before then. And you may not be my immediate successor, but eventually, you’re the person I want in this office. In the meantime, you do your best in this job to silence any opposition. If you accept my offer, that is.”

Ellie got up too and smiled. “I guess I’ve got some reading to do,” she replied.

“Thank you,” Elizabeth replied. “Meet John and me in the mess at 1930. We can talk about what this new job of yours will entail over dinner.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

Ellie started to leave, but Elizabeth stopped her. “Ellie?”

“Yes, ma’am?” Ellie said, turning around at the doorway.

“You’ve never had to call me ‘ma’am’. Please don’t start now.”

She blushed a little. “Sorry, Elizabeth.”

Elizabeth smiled. “We’ll talk tonight.”

Nodding, Ellie headed out, wishing that Marcus and Laura weren’t both on missions off-world now. She headed toward Kate’s office, intent on telling someone about what had just happened. If nothing else, Kate would have celebratory cookies. But when she came to the transporter, she stared at the screen for a moment and glanced at her watch. Atlantis would be making contact with Earth in about an hour.

She touched the screen. A moment later, Ellie stepped out and headed toward her quarters. She wanted to tell her friends, but first she needed to tell her father. He was going to be so proud.


End file.
